The reviews are in for Emanuel Gat Dance's Five Days in the Sun, which played two nights at Sadler's Wells on 3-4 November, its London premiere after a first outing at Montpellier Danse in June. Emanuel Gat's 70-minute piece for twelve dancers is set to the first four movements of Mahler's Fifth Symphony, in Leonard Bernstein's recording with the Vienna Philharmonic, with silk costumes by VICHER and lighting by Gat himself. The critics were close to unanimous about how it looked, with the light and the gowns praised almost everywhere, and divided on whether its five sections added up to anything. That split the ratings neatly between four stars and three.
3.4 / 5 from 9 criticsThe verdict: nine reviews, every one of them rated: four stars from West End Best Friend, The Reviews Hub, The Spy in the Stalls and theQR, and three from LondonTheatre1, LiftedLeg, All That Dazzles, London Box Office and theatrereviews.design, an average of 3.4 out of 5. Emanuel Gat's lighting and the VICHER gowns are admired across the board. What separates the four-star notices from the three-star ones is whether the lack of a through-line reads as openness or as drift.
What are critics saying about Five Days in the Sun?
West End Best Friend
Reviewer: Stephanie Osztreicher
Osztreicher calls the evening magical and cathartic, and is taken with how closely Gat listens to the score, picking out single sounds for the dancers to answer and letting silences in.
"Emanuel Gat has a sensitivity in his work that sets him apart from other contemporary choreographers."
Her one reservation is that the open-ended narrative sometimes slides into obscurity.
Read Stephanie Osztreicher’s full review at West End Best Friend
The Reviews Hub
"Constantly questions"
Reviewer: Maryam Philpott
Philpott rates Gat's lighting and scenic design as the finest work on the stage, tracing a palette of golds, reds and bronzes that gives way to blue and white as the five chapters pass. She reads the piece as a cycle through time.
"The dance, the heat, the experience, the beauty is enough."
She is content to leave its meaning open.
The Spy in the Stalls
Reviewer: Portia Yuran Li
Yuran Li treats the piece as an experiment in making drama without a story, with light doing most of the talking, and is struck by the fourth section, where the dancers become silhouettes against sounds of children and explosions.
"FIVE DAYS IN THE SUN demonstrates a remarkable sensitivity to the relationship between movement, music and scenography."
She finds some of the silent pauses behind the curtain stall the momentum.
theQR
Reviewer: Cath Coutts
Coutts enjoys the way Gat answers the score's crescendos with softness, and the device of bringing the curtain down while the dancers are still moving. She feared Gat had spread himself too thin by designing the lighting too, and was proved wrong.
"The result is a work of fluid movement and striking visual contrasts, even when its narrative remains elusive."
She would have welcomed programme notes for the sections that seemed to be telling a story.
LondonTheatre1
Reviewer: Fiona Gilbert
Gilbert praises the grace and athleticism of all twelve dancers and the dusky glow of Gat's lighting, though she wishes the Mahler had been played live.
"Five Days in the Sun is unlikely to appeal to everyone. It feels quite unstructured and rather repetitious at times…"
She still recommends it to lovers of contemporary dance who are prepared to give themselves up to it.
LiftedLeg
Reviewer: Bruce Marriott
Marriott loves the opening section, with its floating apricot gowns, but finds the later costume choices increasingly distracting and the movement less and less revealing of the music.
"The staging screams monumental, but while Gat starts well - very well - he cannot sustain his 70-minute experiment…"
All That Dazzles
Reviewer: Sam Woodward
Woodward singles out Geremia Cappagli among the dancers and admires the costumes and the use of Mahler, but struggles to find the threads that link the five acts.
"Gat’s lighting is phenomenal, and the triumph of the entire evening."
By the closing section, Woodward was no longer sure what the evening was building towards.
London Box Office
Reviewer: Eve Jawara
Jawara enjoyed the second act most, where the storyline felt clearest, and reads Inez Wicher's draped gowns as a link to Mahler's own brush with death.
"Overall, Five Days in the Sun is a contemporary exploration of life and death, set to a superb piece of classical music."
She recommends it to audiences who already love contemporary dance.
theatrereviews.design
"a thought-provoking evening, musically satisfying, often with some wonderful imagery, but halfway to a story which it never, and thus unsatisfyingly, completes."
The reviewer praises the twelve-strong company and the lighting, but finds the movement repetitive and the piece searching for a dramaturgy it never quite finds.
"my problem with this piece is not it finding truthful expression in Mahler, but it often lacks beauty."
For more dance at Sadler's Wells, see our roundups of Acosta Danza's Cuban Baroque and of Lost Dog's The Last Hamlet at Sadler's Wells East.
For more information, visit the official website.
