Choreographer Oona Doherty's world premiere of Leather Jacket at Bold Tendencies in London's Peckham multi-storey car park turned theatre presents eight dancers in leather jackets, slapping feet and thighs in determined rhythm under bright fluorescent lights. The piece, running at a tight 45 minutes, emphasizes the collective pleasure of sharing a rhythm and the honest exhaustion of the performers.
Early career brilliance and later variability
Doherty's early works, Hope Hunt and Hard to be Soft, established her as a unique, urgent voice in uncharted territory. Her subsequent output has been more variable, though she remains utterly her own woman. Her last major piece, Specky Clark, was high concept, while Leather Jacket feels the opposite, with not quite enough concept.
Movement and atmosphere
The dancers begin by slapping one foot to the ground in a heavy thud, repeated to keep a determined rhythm. Foot slaps turn to thigh slaps, then bounces, evolving into Doherty's skewed version of Irish step dance, matching the shift from electronic score to Cormac Begley's experimental Irish folk music. The dancers shed their jackets and perform in underwear. The unison is exacting but retains a sense of being flesh-and-blood people, not a regiment. Between sections, they pant, sweat, swig water, and laugh with each other, conveying real presence. Doherty aims to show the pushing, perspiring, and getting on with it; the dance is a means to an end, and the jackets make it harder, sweatier work.
The movement itself is not hugely interesting, but there are wry theatrical flourishes: one dancer, stripped to his pants, dons sunglasses and smokes a cigarette, a comical uniform of cool. A slight sinister undercurrent emerges when dancers slap the heavy jackets on the floor, echoing the opening rhythm with thudding violence, hinting at a possible mood shift that never fully materializes.
Impact and significance
According to the review, Leather Jacket is another unpredictable step in Doherty's singular journey, showcasing her commitment to honest, sweat-drenched performance over high concept.
