Dance

She may now be an MBE and some of her dances are found on both the A-level and GCSE syllabus, but that doesn’t mean that Lea Anderson has caved in to either predictability or, God forbid, respectability.

About ten seconds into the out-of-town opening of her latest show, ‘Yippeee!!! (2006)’, an offended moral-crusader type stormed up the aisle dragging a gaggle of 11-year-olds behind her. An excess of fake pubic hair was the cause of the harrumphing exit. Anderson can’t help but laugh. ‘Those kids are probably going to remember that moment for the rest of their lives.’ Feature continues

‘Yippeee!!! (2006)’ is a whirligig of an extravaganza. The biggest show Anderson has concocted in years, it reunites her two separate companies, The Cholmondeleys and The Featherstonehaughs, in a faux Hollywood spectacular. Over its hour and 40 minutes the 12 dancers zip in and out of 162 costumes as they charge through a non-stop series of outlandish production numbers that hark back to the classic Hollywood heydays of legendary showman Busby Berkeley.

‘You’ll spot numbers like “We’re in the Money” and “42nd Street”; but,’ Anderson says, ‘only if you already know them really well. This isn’t meant as a pastiche,’ she insists. ‘I got fascinated by those endless, anonymous chorus lines – sort of hypnotised by how they function, and what I could do with that.’ So, in addition to all the costumes, there’s a mirror-like floor. ‘For once,’ she says, ‘those who only have enough money to sit in the cheap seats up top are going to get the best view, they’ll be seeing twice as many dancers.’

Anderson knew from the beginning that her regular costume designer, the double Oscar-winning Sandy Powell, could not be a part of ‘Yippeee!!! (2006)’.

‘We can only use Sandy once a year,’ says Anderson, ‘and she had already done “Flag” for us, so I’d asked someone else to do “Yippeee!!!”, but two days before we were to start she had to pull out. I was frantic, when suddenly I think: What have I got to lose? So I pick up the phone and ask Simon [Vincenzi] if he’d like to do it.’ A radical theatre visionary, Vincenzi had never tried his hand at costumes before. ‘When he said yes, I just knew everything was going to be okay.’ says Anderson.

On Sunday, the night after ‘Yippeee!!! (2006)’ closes, Dance Umbrella winds up with a gala at Sadler’s Wells. Not just the end of this year’s festival, it will also mark the retirement, after 28 years, of Val Bourne as Umbrella’s artistic director. This may be the end of an era, but it will be a celebration rather than a wake.

Sunday’s gala will include something brand new from Michael Clark, plus hits from Mark Morris, Richard Alston and many others. Everyone on the stage, and all of us in the audience, know that Bourne’s reign at Dance Umbrella has truly been a golden age for contemporary dance in London.