Nitin Sawhney with Wang Ramirez

 Nitin Sawhney with Wang Ramirez, Royal Albert Hall, November 2

Nitin Sawhney at Royal Albert Hall (photo: Morah Geist)

Being an Associate Artist at Sadler’s Wells means Nitin Sawhney has privileged access to dance; he is, after all, known to dance enthusiasts for his collaborations with Akram Khan and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. This evening, Royal Albert Hall and Sadler’s Wells have got together for the first time to co-produce a dance element by inviting the duo Wang Ramirez — Honji Wang and Sébastien Ramirez — to perform with Sawnhey and his guests. It’s a revelation not only on a musical level but choreographically.

In front of a series of vertical panels on which is projected the artwork from his 2015 Dystopian Dream, Sawhney plays a number of tracks from the album and from his wide-ranging catalogue. His music is based on an elaborate layering of sounds and textures led by Sawnhey himself on guitar or piano. Occasionally a single instrument or voice from the ensemble will rise above the orchestration to sing its own song, as with tabla player Aref Durvesh, flautist and vocalist Ashwin Srinivasan, and cellist Ian Burdge. Despite their individual quality, other instrumentalists fare less well on the balance of sounds in the cavernous Albert Hall. Sawhney’s use of the voice as an integral part of his instrumentation leads to some fine performances, particularly from J’Danah and Tina Grace whose voices have what Roland Barthes called ‘le grain de la voix’, or a rich textural quality that carries the sound.

Wang and Ramirez dance two consecutive pieces in each half of the program. Sound quality is not something that concerns them yet in their first track, Time Trap, they perform like two additional instruments in the band, so totally inside the music that we see it as they dance. Like an inspired riff on the music, it’s infectious; if Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers had had the disciplinary makeup of Ramirez and Wang — gymnastics, b-boying and martial arts, to name a few — this is how they might have moved. In addition to the rhythmic speed and precision — there are as many articulations in their bodies as there are notes in the music — there is a clarity of line and a mercurial virtuosity in the duo’s performance that takes the breath away. For the second piece, Silence, with Eva Stone on vocals, the balance of dance to music is less effective; the choreographic language is similar but it stands outside the framework of the song. I find myself watching the dance while the music continues in the background. In the second half, in which Sawhney introduces his Latin side, Wang and Ramirez dance to Redshift with lead vocals by J’Danah and to a recorded track, Dimensions. In both the fluid complicity with the music is back. The body is once again both instrument and musician, silently creating images like a skillful mime while building its vocabulary by effortlessly adopting and playing with such kathak idioms as the rippling arms. This is the alchemy of artistic collaboration, a process of contributing to and being transformed by the other. As artists working both inside and outside their cultural identities, Wang and Ramirez have built their reputation on this kind of sensitivity just as Sawhney has done in his fusion of musical influences. The three have a lot in common and it shows.

In a written interview I conducted with Wang and Ramirez, Wang remembers first hearing Sawhney’s Homelands when she was 16. ‘I loved that sound, but for me he was an artist who was far away from where I was…’ Before going on stage in the second half, she would have heard the same track with Srinivasan and Grace on lead vocals. Whatever distance there might have been has evidently shrunk to a proximity we can all enjoy.

An Interview with Wang Ramirez

An interview with Wang Ramirez

Honji Wang and Sébastien Ramirez (photo: Filine Fink)

Sadler’s Wells is continuing to expand its remit, for the first time co-producing an event at The Royal Albert Hall on November 2: musician Nitin Sawhney, an associate artist at Sadler’s Wells, is performing takes from his most recent album, Dystopian Dream accompanied by singer Joss Stone and other guests. Already known in dance circles for his compositions for Akram Khan (Vertical Road, Zero Degrees, ITMOi and Bahok), Sawhney’s event will feature dance by the Wang Ramirez duo in their first appearance at The Royal Albert Hall. Honji Wang has already danced with Khan — so many roads lead to and from Khan, another Sadler’s Wells associate artist — but in her partnership with Sébastien Ramirez she has performed with flamenco dancer Rocío Molina, in hip hop, and for the Rebel Heart Tour with Madonna for which Ramirez provided choreography.

Wang was born of Korean parents in Germany. She studied gymnastics, classical ballet and hip hop with a flavour of martial arts. Ramirez is a French b-boy of Spanish origin who shares with Wang a start in gymnastics and a love of martial arts, with further interests in capoeira, boxing and Brazilian jujitsu. His career was already under way when he met Wang in 2004 at a freestyle event in Berlin. With their cultural identities and complementary dance forms already intermixed, the duo has openly searched for ways to cross-fertilize with other styles and traditions. Performing to the music of Sawhney is a continuation of that path.

“We are always experimenting with our way of dancing, moving, and creating together,” says Ramirez in conversation. “What it means to do certain moves with a certain intention, how this will be seen and understood by the audience…So we constantly search to develop the techniques we have mastered into a new growth that becomes our own form. It’s a life of exploring and it keeps us constantly moving…”

Wang uses an imaginative image to describe her approach to artists working in different styles: “I’m extremely nosy to experience their cocoon; I want to enter like a little mouse and see what they see.” Perhaps it is this willingness to see through the eyes of others that makes Wang Ramirez collaborations so seamless. When I saw her dance with Khan last year Wang remained faithful to her own dance but complemented Khan in her power and fluidity.

When she first heard Sawhney’s song, Homelands, Wang remembers, “I loved that sound, but for me he was an artist who was far away from where I was; I was just 16 and didn’t know what the hell was going to happen with my life. Later on when I heard his music again in performances of Akram Khan I was always thinking the music is such a great mix of something ethnic with massive beats and rhythms. So when we got a call from Sadler’s Wells to ask if the collaboration with Nitin would interest us, we thought, yes, of course.”

Ramirez describes the process of creation: “We always want to get as close as possible to strong emotions by using body movement, dance, visuals, and technology…having met Nitin in his studio and after listening to the music, we enjoyed exchanging ideas and concepts right away; it came very naturally and a it’s project we are excited to work on. The way we will prepare is a spontaneous process between each of us around lots of discussion and emotional statements that we will relate to our choreography and graphics.”

Whatever the outcome on November 2, Wang Ramirez will not simply accompany Sawhney’s music; they are catalysts who will transform it through their own alchemy while letting the music transform them. That’s after all the true nature of an artistic collaboration.

Wednesday 2 November 2016 at 7.30pm
Royal Albert Hall, SW7
Tickets: £25 – £60
Ticket Office: 020 7589 8212 or www.royalalberthall.com / 020 7863 8000 or www.sadlerswells.com