Remarkable work of great control

The slight figure of 78year-old Merce Cunningham was greeted with prolonged cheers last night in the Waterfront Hall Belfast at the end of his 90-minute piece, Ocean, first performed in 1994.

It was a remarkable work, danced in the round by 15 dancers to a mixture of Andrew Culver's score performed live by 112 members of the augmented Queen's University Symphony Orchestra and David Tudor's tape of sounds such as whale song, fog horns, seabirds and crashing waves.

The dancers were superb, performing with incredible control a movement which owes much to ballet but which classical dancers would find hard to do without previous experience of Cunningham's own very individual technique.

However, I must admit that while I could admire both the dancers brilliance and Cunningham's amazing skill in manoeuvring his dancers constantly and keeping them facing every point of the compass in turn, the cerebral almost mathematical calculation of his choreography failed to involve me.

But then I have a preference for movement which expresses emotion, matched to music, something which Cunningham and the late composer John Cage, who inspired the score never considered necessary.

Nevertheless, the Belfast Festival at Queen's deserves congratulations for letting us see this fascinating work by the famous American choreographer.

Ocean continues until Saturday. Booking on Belfast 667687