DANCE

John Percival
Friday 12 September 1997 18:02 EDT
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The Singular Voice of Woman, Place Theatre, Duke's Road, London WC1 (0171-387 0031), Friday and Saturday, 19-20 September, 8pm

The American dancer Janet Eilber, a leading soloist of the Martha Graham Dance Company, sprang to fame dancing opposite Rudolf Nureyev in the ballet Lucifer which Graham made for him - a role she successfully took over from Margot Fonteyn. This week she has a very different task, heading the cast for an evening of solos created by five radical women dancers during the past 70 years.

Her share will include "Satyric Festival Song", an unexpectedly light- hearted number which Graham created in 1932; also a contrasting and more recent work, "The Stab", by an Argentine choreographer, Susanna Tambutti. This is described as a theatrical tour de force that travels between vaudeville, mime and movement theatre.

Two other American dance pioneers from Graham's time are represented in the programme by two works each.

Doris Humphrey was a fellow student with Graham at the famous Denishawn School in California in the 1920s, and won a high reputation as a dance teacher and choreographer.

Eleanor King was not as internationally famous as the others but had a long career, including just one solo concert in London, and her contribution could reveal some unexpected qualities.

Christine Jowers, a former principal dancer of Humphrey's company (who has organised the whole evening), and Lesley Main will dance these solos.

Completing the bill is a British dancer, Jacky Lansley, one of the pioneers of the New Dance movement here, who will give the premiere of her own creation, "L'Autre" (The Other), which is a new take on Fokine's "Petrushka".

EYE ON THE NEW

Another woman choreographer, Rambert Dance Company's Didi Veldman, has a premiere this week: Greymatter, to be given on a highly attractive programme with Paul Taylor's Airs and a new production of Jiri Kylian's No More Play. If Veldman's new work is as original as her ballet Kol Simcha, it should be well worth seeing.

New Victoria Theatre, Woking (01483 761144), Fri & Sat, 19-20 Sept, then touring.

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