Dance Review: Fertile Ground, Sunderland College

FERTILE Ground are a professional dance company in the North-East who focus on contemporary dance. They kicked off their spring tour at Sunderland College and really excelled.

The show had four dancers: Holly Bellamy, Kayleigh Fisk, Alicia Meehan and Alys North, who performed four short dance routines. The first performance, NOW (their signature work) was short and snappy with some incredible industrial sounds. This was followed on by Shields of Bone, a 17 minute piece about “our protective shield”.

After the interval, in my opinion, the show truly shone. Alys North, one of the performers, choreographed a piece called Land which she performed with fellow performer Alicia Meehan and it was very impressive. The audience were given information on what each of the performances were about, which I personally thought rather handy, because I found myself trying to interpret each dance move and kept myself more interested.

The finale performance, A New Chimera, lists that it is about “our understanding of different dance style”. Choreographer Tom Dale has said that the inspiration for the piece is from where he first got into dancing – in the clubs. The inspiration comes from all the different groups of people dancing differently on the dancefloor and you really can see that relayed to the audience.

This is a show that is short yet effective and you can really see that people have put a lot of effort and hard work into the tour.

For more information go to fertileground.org.uk/whats-on/

Emily Craig