Facially and physically, they are as drop-dead gorgeous a clutch of people as you are ever likely to see in any one place at any one time. But, above all, it is the quality of their movement – a seamless and urgent fusion of Afro-Caribbean, Latin and modern-American – that holds the attention like glue.
The piece that showed them to best advantage is also, in many ways, the simplest. Set to heady Latin house music, much of Mambo 3XXI – by their gifted resident choreographer George Céspedes – has the air of a souped-up aerobics class: a step forward, then back; a shoulder raised, then lowered; a bounce to one side, then back again. Hardly earth-shattering stuff, you might think, yet these passages are performed in such perfect synch, and with such sexy intensity, that you can’t tear your eyes away.
This piece also contains several gorgeous little solos and duets in which dancers are let completely off the leash, and displays clever use of the stage, with five-strong clusters of performers darting between each other at extreme corners of it. There are also brief moments of uneasy stillness between sections, hinting perhaps at the escapist nature of dance.
