Dad Dancing review – fathers and daughters bond on dance floor

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/nov/06/dad-dancing-review-fathers-and-daughters-bond-dance

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Earlier this year She She Pop’s remarkable Testament used King Lear to explore father-and-daughter relationships in a show that was both searing and tender. Now Rosie Heafford, Alexandrina Hemsley and Helena Webb are tempting their dads back on the dance floor in a show subtitled Reclaiming Fatherly Grooves. It’s all part of an endeavour to reconnect with their fathers and give their geologist, advertising executive and financial journalist dads a glimmer of understanding about what they actually do as trained contemporary dancers.

Seeing dad taking to the dance floor is, of course, one of the most toe-curlingly embarrassing rites of passage of teenage life, and the show plays neatly on that feeling in a warm-hearted evening of gentle send-ups and recollections which celebrates how dancing together brings us closer and keeps us together. The girls and their dads (Helena’s father, Andy, only appears on film and at one point has to be played by a member of the audience) strut their stuff to an eclectic range of music. The fathers reminisce about the births of their daughters, and a large community cast of all ages, shapes and sizes join the stage and talk with unaffected emotion about their own relationships with their dads, before dancing their hearts out.

It’s lovely stuff and the participatory element is sparkily touching. But even at 70 minutes feels overextended, as if it doesn’t have enough content to sustain it. Nobody takes any real risks on stage, either artistic or emotional, and the whole thing comes across as a little too contrived, as it falls back on contemporary performance tropes and the core performers struggle to find an authenticity that in any way matches that of the community participants. But it’s a really nice idea, and one that may yet find its best moves.

• Until 15 November. Box office: 020-7223 2223. Venue: Battersea Arts Centre, London