Concrete Rain, Asian Dance Festival
Sayonara by Unboxing Theatre © Rachel Duff-Gibson
It is a curse-come-privilege as someone who gets to see a lot of dance that you reach a point where you are constantly seeking the new.
The next new thing. A new dance style. A new move. A new choreographer. And it is at festivals of up and coming talent where they hide. Maybe not for the casual dance watcher, but for us dance nerds they are a playground of possibility. Resolution Festival, dance school showcases and now the new one-day-only Asian Dance Festival aim to introduce the world to the next big thing in dance by giving opportunities to new creatives.
It is produced by Slash Arts, the brainchild of Simon Hodgkinson, which aims to give performing opportunities to emerging artists. The Asian Dance Festival aims to do just that, showcasing the work of up-and-coming East Asian choreographers.
As with any programme like this, it is hard to compare these short works to those by established choreographers with bigger budgets and longer development time. It’s also guaranteed to be a mixed bag. So, it was with an open mind that I entered Sadler’s Wells’ studio theatre, Lilian Baylis, for an afternoon of contemporary dance.
Neverland Space Theatre and Jiarong Yu’s Towards a New Architecture: Brutalism © Rachel Duff-Gibson
What the festival’s opener, Neverland Space Theatre and Jiarong Yu’s Towards a New Architecture: Brutalism, lacked in consistently precise group movement it made up for with decent duets; a man continuously throwing himself to the floor stole the show. Unfortunately, I struggled to follow what the work was about and so my concentration faltered (the synopsis talks about an ‘architectural awakening’?).
An unclear narrative was a common theme throughout the night, with the choreography not enough to hold my attention despite this.
Tomo Sone’s Invisible Chaos, for example, captured my imagination at first with ducking and diving limbs against the sound of strings (and later a forest soundscape), but didn’t develop from its starting point to hold my attention. This was the same for Sayonara by Unboxing Theatre (a meditative, ceremonial piece that featured sticks), Kiwi Chan’s bizarre Black Sheep Reversal featuring a horse head that wouldn’t look out of place in a 2010s TomSka video, and Yan Yin Yung’s When The Petals Fall (which transitioned from heavy breathing to acrobatic duets).
Kiwi Chan’s Black Sheep Reversal © Rachel Duff-Gibson
On the other end of the spectrum, Ka Ki Christina Lai and Ying-Yen Yvonne Wang’s Laboratory of Human Friction was kind enough to provide a voiceover set the scene (an experimental laboratory where two clashing personalities learn to coexist) but a final voiceover explaining the end of the work was too much exposition.
Conceptually, all these works have potential, but some tightening and clarity is required to avoid audience disinterest and confusion.
Dove Che’s The Great Void © Rachel Duff-Gibson
There were two works that showed more promise however.
Dove Che’s The Great Void was a sensual duet between two dancers. They controlled their bodies with exact precision as they wrapped and stretched around each other, their nude underwear and long limbs giving the piece an extraterrestrial feel.
Fans were the subject of CHUM by Hahyyun Kim. At first I thought they would be obscuring the two dancer’s faces throughout (an interesting concept to explore another day perhaps?), but soon the dancer’s identities were revealed to us as they flicked open and closed the fans with impressive precision. The duo were well rehearsed, dancing in-sync to choreography that masterfully interpreted the soundtrack’s rhythmic percussion.
The deeper meaning and inspiration behind both works may still have been a mystery, but the choreography was so entrancing that it did not matter.
★★
Concrete Rain, Asian Dance Festival, Slash Arts
Lilian Baylis Studio, London / 13 September 2025
Press ticket
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