Collaborator ★★★★★

To describe Ockham’s Razor as a dance company which specialises in circus skills might give the impression that there are elaborate tricks in sequined costumes, and that couldn’t be further from the case. Instead, this company, led by artistic directors Charlotte Mooney and Alex Harvey, the depths of whose relationship enable them to create pieces so thought-provoking and of such beauty that one is quick to forget the immense physical skills on display.

Collaborator aims to describe the process of creating a piece of work from its inception. Performed solely by the artistic directors, both of them step out of the piece at the beginning to directly address the audience and, by doing so, immediately engage the room in the work.

The piece uses a range of equipment rigged and suspended from above the stage – a large double trapeze structure on which the performers climb and hang, exploring moves and ideas, sometimes flowing, at others more tentatively as they try out an idea.

This piece takes the audience on an extraordinary journey of understanding – thought processes are expressed so coherently in movement that it is impossible not to feel both the agonies and ecstasies of the creation. Anyone who has ever tried to make an idea a reality will recognise the emotions here, told in vignettes and in longer scenes – the ‘dark days’, the ‘days where you just keep going’.

Occasionally Charlotte explains some of the inspirations for the ideas – waves which collide either productively or destructively, the power of marching in time – before these thoughts are manifested in the duet. Very powerful is a scene where the two are at sea with their work, desperately trying to haul in an idea which keeps getting away and then having to hack through a jungle to reach an open space once more.

This is an hour of quite mesmeric joy, utterly transfixing and simultaneously moving for the sheer emotion that these two performers engender. To play out a piece of this nature, where each performer is so dependent on the other, requires enormous trust. Strength in vulnerability is a paradox, but one from which it is impossible to look away.