Review: Jasmin Vardimon’s ALiCE – a lost opportunity for depth and crafting
Lucía Piquero sees the Jasmin Vardimon Company in ALiCE – lots of tricks but the story didn’t gel.
| Title | Alice |
| Company | Jasmin Vardimon Company |
| Venue | Sadler’s Wells, London |
| Date | 23 May 2025 |
| Reviewer | Lucía Piquero |
Jasmin Vardimon Company presented its full-length show ALiCE at Sadler’s Wells this week, with a cast of seven strong multi-character dancers. The show starts with a bang, almost literally. There have been several shows lately that start with lots of wild movement and loud music – it seems they are trying to shock us into staying in our seats. Unfortunately, like it happens a lot in the rest of the show, the ideas are repeated beyond what is necessary, and we lose interest. The whole production could easily have been half an hour shorter, a usual problem for dance. There are some good ideas in this reimagining of the well-known story – the set seems to be a book in itself, and some of the magic of Lewis Carroll‘s tale translates well in Vardimon’s shadow scenes, where Alice’s imagination encounters a butterfly or lively flowers. Other ideas seem excessive and out of place. In the “coming of age” of Alice, we end up seeing her in a seemingly abusive relationship, though I’m not sure why or with whom, and problematically almost normalising this – there is a lot of unnecessary violence in this production.
Don’t get me wrong, the show is striking with impressive sets and effects, interesting costumes and lots of acrobatics. It just doesn’t quite get to the story. A big disappointment for me was the Mad Hatter’s tea party, one of the most interesting and generative moments of the book, which is simply a repeated vertical tea party in this version. It is probably the most well-crafted scene of the show rhythmically, but there is nothing of the story, or the potential nuance of the characters. And then I will one day get into why choreographers seem to find it necessary to associate the Queen of Hearts with a sense of Spanish-ness (Wheeldon and his casting choices, anyone?), but today is not that day.
The flamingo-flamenco link and the song, which would be well known for anyone Spanish-speaking – it is Cuban in origin, although sung with a different accent – and which related to nothing in topic to what went on in the croquet scene, left me quite baffled. As did the fact that we are still seemingly finding a man in a dress funny in 2025, like it’s the last century. The literal is overused too, like the group of Alices dancing to a song that sings “Who the fuck is Alice?” in a scene questioning Alice’s identity.
There was a sense of storytelling, although not completely successful for me, but what was missing was a real sense of movement crafting. We got to see a lot of tricks, the prowess of the dancers was evident, but the movement and the story didn’t gel, the acting was exaggerated, and the choreography was based on repetition of a character-defining few movements (like the arms swinging for the Cheshire Cat, the jumps for the soldiers, or the rolls onto the backpack for the explorer). By the end of the show, I was quite disconnected, and even the very good final section, where the set and the characters revolve and change into a series of scenes from Alice’s future, felt out of place. I don’t think slight references to political stances or sweet and melancholy moments make up for the almost caricaturesque presentation. A little bit less could do a lot more and get to an audience more clearly and honestly.
Graham Spicer, aka ‘Gramilano’, is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Italian ballerina Carla Fracci.
Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.
He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.
