Dance Revolutionaries review – performers dance like nobody’s watching

Private dancers … Kenneth MacMillan’s Sea of Troubles in Dance Revolutionaries. Photograph: Pierre Tappon

Here is a two-part documentary that pays homage to dance greats Robert Cohan and Kenneth MacMillan. Directed by David Stewart, Dance Revolutionaries essentially presents two pieces performed by dancers from the Yorke Dance Project and the Royal Ballet, and with the noble intention of making modern dance immersive and accessible.

The first part, Portraits, is choreographed by Cohan (who died in 2021) and aims to “explore life’s private moments” in five solo performances created in collaboration with its cast. In theory, you’d think a dance film would fail to capture the intimacy of a live performance, but somehow Portraits accentuates it; the uninhibited passion of the dancers and lack of direct performance to the camera make it borderline voyeuristic. Each dance is set in a public but desolate place, from office buildings, and a seafront to a graffiti-scrawled tunnel, creating a sense of vulnerability and familiarity. You feel you are peeking in on an individual’s emotional turmoil that can only be expressed through dance, and it’s hard to look away.

The second section is MacMillan’s rarely produced ballet, Sea of Troubles, inspired by Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In contrast to Portraits, the cast of six dancers transport us to Hatfield House, Queen Elizabeth I’s childhood home and the camera follows them to create an immersive experience that sometimes feels like a private performance. To remove Shakespeare’s language and boil Hamlet down to its emotional journey might sound a strange idea, but in practice it is satisfying and refreshing to watch.

We all know the phrase “dance like nobody’s watching” – well, this film is like that, but in the grandest sense; how often have you wanted to break social conventions and dance your feelings out? Dance Revolutionaries captures that feeling and works with the camera, not against it.

• Dance Revolutionaries is in UK cinemas from 26 June.