Crawler

Jason Mcnamara and Jessie Thompson in Crawler. Image uncredited

****

Most days you can’t scroll through your feed without seeing another TikTok, Hip-Hop sensation enjoying their fifteen seconds of fame. Bite size, teaser trailers showing off a handful of explosive moves like a firework display. Routines lasting as long as sex with an over enthusiastic lover, and yielding about the same result. Lots of exhilaration and excitement at first, then it’s all over just as it’s begun. Showing enough to make it abundantly clear that Hip-Hop is more at home with songs rather than large projects. That it’s competitive. That it requires flamboyance, hard work and technical dexterity. That you have to ooze style and be seriously good to make it. In the case of award winning, Hip-Hop dancer, Jessie Thompson, seriously good is an understatement. Thompson is a true original. Pushing at the boundaries of Hip-Hop whilst remaining true to its roots, Crawler sees Thompson move past sound bites into something louder, wilder, deeper and durational. And often exhilarating to behold.

A dreamscape open to many interpretations; its blurb says a lot that could mean anything or nothing. Even so, the experience is undeniably visceral. Thompson pushing against contemporary dance to yield a new, interdisciplinary experience. If Hip-Hop is often loud, Crawler is unafraid of being silent or still. Sound and movement allowed to whisper as well as shout. Even in stillness energy is being generated beyond mere recovery or conservation. Seen in the barely perceptible opening, with Thompson’s body slowly collapsing in on itself as it struggles to rise. Jason Macnamara’s percussive score looming like encroaching thunder. Mapping a liminal void echoed in John Gunning’s camouflage of shadows.

Jessie Thompson and Jason Mcnamara in Crawler. Image uncredited

Rising, Thompson is less a conduit for unseen energies so much as a puppet in service to its strings. Stuttering into a sequence of repeated patterns, delineated by Macnamara’s beats. Her white costume, tai chi style movements, leg extensions, back arches and whip like pirouettes evoking Shaolin martial arts. Sequences following diagonal and circular pathways when she's not pressed front and centre. Thompson’s confrontational stare etched from shadows challenging all comers. Yet the throw down is to no one other than Thompson, challenging herself to dig deeper.

Evident in an electrifying body popping sequence that transcends the formulaic. One viscerally, brilliantly breathtaking, evoking wild and terrifying things. Thompson seceding to a higher power as rhythm and energy course through her, achieving perfect synchronisation with Macnamara’s percussive heavy rhythms. Her hair, like an upstaging dancing partner, a primal force unleashing turbulent violence. Thompson, shedding her white top for a hoodie, executing some deft footwork that pays homage to the rhythmic roots of her practice. Till the sensual and sexual come out to play. Hoodie cast aside, Thompson toys with stripper styled bends and positions, cavorting on hands and knees. Harnessing the power of both the male and female gaze, leaving no one in doubt who’s in control of her body and of how it is being represented. Movements wild, electric, and vibrantly sensuous leave her soaked in durational sweat as she executes a final series of floor spins. Easing from the stage, breathing hard, the final image is not of exhaustion, but of resilience having conquered the odds.

Jessie Thompson and Jason Mcnamara in Crawler. Image uncredited

Crawl before you walk they say. In her efforts to break new ground Crawler sees Thompson walking tall. Taking Hip-Hop and pushing it to speak to deeper things. Seen in preview, Crawler is untidy in places, with one or two sections requiring tightening, but much of that will resolve itself as the run progresses. What is markedly evident is that Thompson is braving uncharted waters to refine and deepen her practice. Crawler an exciting, exhilarating work by a phenomenal young talent.

Crawler, by Jessie Thompson, previewed at Project Arts Centre, July 26.

Edinburgh Fringe - Assembly @ Dancebase

Dates: 2 - 11 August (no show Aug 5th)

Time: 14.40pm (45 mins)

Standard Ticket: £15 Concession Ticket: £14

Tickets available via Edinburgh Fringe and Assembly