Hussein Chalayan's Gravity Fatigue, Sadler's Wells, review: At last, movement and a sense of theatre take the spotlight

Chalayan and Jalet do have fun with transformations, clothes and sets that aren’t quite what they seem

(Hugo Glendinning)

Fashion designer Hussein Chalayan’s first dance production choreographs fabric as well as bodies. As a group of dancers spin, their swirling coats flip inside out to become sequined tunics, an onstage transformation scene. It’s one of the best images in Gravity Fatigue: Chalayan has plenty of ideas, but they don’t all find satisfying theatrical form.

Though this is his first choreographed show, Chalayan has a long history with dance, and with Sadler’s Wells. One of his best-known collections was presented on this stage, with models taking the set apart to transform it into clothes. Since then, he’s designed costumes for choreographers including Michael Clark and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui.

Gravity Fatigue, commissioned by Sadler’s Wells, is a series of vignettes. Chalayan underlines the resemblance to a fashion show format by including a catwalk sequence. Dancers in heels stride about in a model strut, as a garbled voiceover introduces the collection in several languages. The joke is that the dancers are draped in sheets, their faces and bodies hidden.

(Hugo Glendinning)

Different sequences emphasise weight, the gravity of the title. Pairs of dancers share stretchy elastic garments, pulling away from each other to create long, taut shapes. Three women watch another dancer from behind tables; when they lean forward, interested, their elbows press into the flexible table tops, making sharp elbow shapes underneath.

It’s a stop-start format, broken up further by Natasha Chivers’ stark lighting. Three women press what look like life-sized paper-doll dresses out of the set wall, climbing carefully into them, then climbing back out. The detailing is fun: the dresses have striped edges, like an airmail letter, while the set looks like the curved side of an aeroplane. But once they’ve put them on, there’s nothing to do but take them off again. There’s little development, and not much for the dancers to do.

Another sequence lines up the whole cast like starters in a race. They repeatedly break forwards, in a slow-motion run, then rewind to the original position. It’s a small idea, too much repeated and the unfolding frieze isn’t sharp enough to give the image weight. There are too many meandering numbers, ideas that drift before Chalayan and Jalet move on to the next sequence.

(Hugo Glendinning)

Chalayan and Jalet do have fun with transformations, clothes and sets that – as in that early collection – aren’t quite what they seem. The reversible costumes don’t just turn inside out, they change structure. The shoulders and arms of coats become the weighted hems of skirts, sober fabric twisting into bright stripes or sequined glitter.

The thirteen dancers form a gaggle at the back of the stage, dancing and huddling, until one jumps forward, landing on her bottom on the floor – which turns out to be a trampoline, and bounces her back up again. As the dancers spread out, that smooth white floor is full of surprises, supporting or springing them away, with a nicely-timed punchline. At last, movement and a sense of theatre take the spotlight.