Not many of the 14 dances included in the Smith Quartet's Dance are likely to make you get up and break into familiar steps, but they are an attractive assortment of short contemporary pieces with a dance-like energy. Although the majority of the composers represented are British, there's a healthy representation of multinationals, including Chinese-American (Tan Dun), Australian-Russian (Elena Kats-Chernin), English-West African (Tunde Jegede), and South African-Irish (Kevin Volans). The composers' diversity is reflective ...
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Not many of the 14 dances included in the Smith Quartet's Dance are likely to make you get up and break into familiar steps, but they are an attractive assortment of short contemporary pieces with a dance-like energy. Although the majority of the composers represented are British, there's a healthy representation of multinationals, including Chinese-American (Tan Dun), Australian-Russian (Elena Kats-Chernin), English-West African (Tunde Jegede), and South African-Irish (Kevin Volans). The composers' diversity is reflective of the diversity of the pieces. Some bear no relationship to particular dance forms (Jegede's Dancing in the Spirit, Graham Fitkin's Informal Dance, Tan Dun's Black Dance), and some are based on traditional or modern Western dances (Andrew Poppy's Definitely Disco, Michael Finnissy's Minuet, Michael Nyman's Tango, Kats-Chernin's Naïve Waltz, and a jig, Django Bates' Peculiar Terms of Physical Intimacy). Several are based on medieval or Renaissance forms (John Adams' Pavane: She's so...
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