V-Tol, or Vertical Take-off and Landing. This is the curious name chosen by the Englishman Mark Murphy for his company, a group that has earned an excellent place in the hit parade of the “new generation” of choreography across the Channel since its foundation. This is because V-Tol is actually much more than a successful acronym: the young Murphy, who leapt to prominence on the English scene with a duo created together with Sue Cox in 1989, founded the V-Tol Dance Company in 1991 and made it clear that his wanted to be a dance of dangerous dynamics, in a breathtaking struggle with the common laws of space, time and gravity. It is enough to look back at the titles churned out in these few years - "Two falling too far" ('89), "Crash and Burn" and "Time spent in the company of bad people" ('91), "Headshot" ('92), "Point blank" and "Routine Inquires" ('92), as well as the most recent "32 feet per second per second" ('93) - to realize that Murphy cultivates a real passion for a physicality pushed beyond the limits. But be careful, Murphy's language is anything but pure abstraction. "For me - he claims - dance speaks of people and emotions. What I'm doing is looking under the skin to find what really excites us". Passionate about sports, then the visual arts, Murphy finally opts for dance, something in which he feels he can combine the physical excitement that sports gives with the aesthetic challenges that the visual arts push. He thus attended the Laban Centre in London for three years, graduating in '89. The aforementioned duo created with Cox is an investigation into the couple with extravagant profiles. The two bodies dance flight and fall, communicating the attraction between man and woman through an energetic game of impulses and pushes. In “time spent in the company of bad people” (the first full-night work created with V-Tol), Murphy accentuates this mix of the emotion of partnership and the challenge of gravity with dancers that would make a “free-climber” envious for their improbable balances on the wall. Without forgetting the scary intrigues from a thriller film in “headshot”, consumed between violent entrances and exits from the row of doors/prisons created by Miranda Melville’s set design.
“32 feet per second per second” (subtitled… a man is falling from a hotel. Did he really fall? Did he jump? Was he pushed?) tells the story of the physical and metaphorical fall of a man; a rapid descent that causes the protagonist to embark on a reflective journey into his interiority, in which he reviews his past and the drama that led him to that moment. For “32 feet per second per second”, Murphy continues to collaborate with set designer Miranda Melville, who here creates particular mobile structures that redefine the space, bringing on stage, among other things, a bed and a shower. Nic Murcott signs the score of the show, combining unknown pop songs, famous pieces and concrete music with the declared aim of creating a cinematic soundtrack. A choice that has its motivations, given that Murphy presents “32 feet per second per second” as an introduction to the world of “dance-cinema”. The choreography is in fact mixed with the projection of a film, created by Mick Duffield.
