HAUCER may have died 600 years ago but his pilgrims are alive and kicking. In fact they they positively fizz with vitality in the hands of the innovative Rambert Dance Company who brought their very individual talent to Woking's New Victoria Theatre last week.
God's Plenty, choregraphed and directed by the Rambert's Christopher Bruce, is a stunning fusion of dance and drama which incorporates some amazing theatre and staging.
Much of the dance, set against a vivid and primitive background, is viewed as if through a telescopic lens closing in and drawing back on the action. Sometimes the audience's attention is drawn in to focus on a small distant spec of bright light resembling a small window looking out on to a distant world. At other times the focus opened up into a panoramic view of the performance.
The full-length work was derived from a wealth of medieval sources, but the main inspiration was Chaucer's Canterbury Tales with the introduction of Crusaders, Saracens, Shamans and Amazons.
God's Plenty score is a mixture of medieval and newly composed music which is reflected in the combination of period instruments (rebec, shawm and recorders) with contemporary percussion and keyboards played by London Musici under the direction of Dominic Muldowney.
The amalgam of rhythmic jigs and dances and clamourous percussion lends itself to the predominant theme of the ballet which links together life's perennial dramas.
The male obsession with the glorification of armed combat is danced out in a series of energetic battles. Crusaders and the Saracens slay one another the first act as do the male Ramberts dancers dressed to resemble mounted warriors, on the comparisoned chargers for The Knight's romantic love and chivalry in ancient Thebes.
The production opens with a prelude revealing two primitive hirsute creatures writhing together in a pre-Christian landscape which gradually merges into the medieval scene with its new morality.
Chaucer's Prologue is narrated to introduce the pilgrims at the Tabard Inn, a microcosm of 14th century English society.
Christopher Bruce has taken the tales of The Knight, The Wife of Bath and the bawdy Miller's Tale to further the theme of his three-act ballet based on the war of the sexes with its opposite emotions of affection and aggression.
Australian-born Miranda Lind dancing the feisty Wife of Bath speedily despatches her five lacklustre husbands in a bout of energetic high kicks, lusty lunges and hard nights.
Likewise the Miller's Tale is a bawdy romp around the bedchamber of the cuckolded carpenter, his young wife and her would-be lovers.
This intoxicating ballet with its unique combination of dance, song and spoken text received thunderous applause, numerous curtain calls and squeals of delight from a largely adolescent audience.
Sue Cansfield.
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