Africa is a recurring theme in the choreography of Zimbabwe-born Bawren Tavaziva. His last, explicitly political piece culminated with an image of Robert Mugabe being lynched; his current work, Wild Dog, is inspired by the grace and ferocity of the Cape hunting dog. It also sees a return to a more movement-based style, with which he seems more at ease. The animal imagery allows him to unleash dynamic phrases that mix suppleness with strength, flow with force. The opening section, for five women, is full of them: backbends toppling into shoulder slides, long lopes, twists in mid-air, dives that scoot across the floor. It’s also bursting with pack-like patterns: chases, scatterings, clumps.
There is, though, a narrative at work, and it’s dominated by alpha male Devaraj Thimmaiah. In a series of knotty duets he wrestles all comers to the ground, including upstart male Graham Adey. Assertion tips into brutality: two women, as limp as fresh carcases, are yanked and hoicked around by the men, like dogs at a kill. The second half reiterates that struggle for survival, but this time only Thimmaiah is left standing, a menacing figure who has destroyed his own kind.
Natasha Lewis’s piebald costumes, emphasising thighs and haunches, are striking, and the dancers (particularly Thimmaiah, Kristina Alleyne and Anna Watkins) are excellent. The score sometimes lurches strangely: mostly propulsive percussion, it’s prefaced by polyglot voices and interrupted by plaintive piano sounds. But one major flaw runs through the piece: though Tavaziva has plenty of ideas, he spends them immediately. The very first phrase – Alleyne cupping hands under feet as she trots on all fours – is arresting enough to build a whole block of dance upon. Instead, it’s swept away by a rush of action that hardly lets up. By the second half you feel that he is keeping going just for the sake of it – doggedly.