For a schools company, Footnote is sure stepping out of their box! Footnote Dance Company’s single night performance of  Forte, was an opportunity to witness the evolution of Malia Johnstone’s choreographic work and on another group of dancers.

Her dance vocabulary is not fixed, but maintains a kinetic resonance with her partner in music, Eden Mulholland. These two dances, ‘Miniatures’ and ‘Broken by Design’ contain a body of movement that picks its way from sequences built close to the floor (the dancer’s most basic platform) to the wilder, exhausting beauty of an abandoned inventory. Lighting by Martyn Roberts precedes another sense, that there is only so much which can be witnessed at once. 

‘Miniatures’, particularly, showed traces of other dancer’s; previous danced moments of this lovely work recognisable in the bodies of the Footnote group. Tiny Anita Hunziker’s, powerful (demented almost), and Sarah Knox and Erynne Gleeson’s articulate renderings, as versions of Malia herself and the beautiful Hannah Elks striking tall grace filled poses just like Maria Dubroska. The men, Jesse Wikiriwhi and Andrew Rusk, were less contained by the familiar ease of Paul Young’s movement style. It is so interesting to see choreography performed beyond its usual lifetime of three shows, and with other bodies housing it.

Occasional (fragmented) momentum in the second half seemed to accumulate out of nowhere. Malia has a great choreographic eye; she is so aware of craftsmanship aspects of spatiality, timing, depth and dynamic and builds knowledgeably towards a deeper performance spectacle. This show bled dancing into choreography. I realised as I was watching that I do want to see what dancers do with their dancing, that individual expressivity and maturity is still on the way and that dancing really is a profound release of humanity speaking.

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