‘I don’t feel anything, I just think about feeling it.’ So drawls the dancer Keren Leiman in Live! Not to be missed. Touring Regionally by the Danish-Canadian choreographer Paxton Rickett. The phrase is an apt description of the work, which gleams with a veneer of un-feeling as plastic as the red nail polish on Leiman’s fingertips. A duet for a dancer and a microphone, Live! Not to be missed. Touring Regionally unfolds episodically, alternating between recordings of Dolly Parton bantering between songs, Leiman’s acerbic imitations of said banter, and long passages of movement that flow, riverlike, without discernible destination. The microphone dances, too: it rises and falls, is swung in a careening circle by Leiman, and eventually, slumps bathetically onto the floor. In that moment, there is just enough slack for the microphone to give a limp quiver – to behave simply as you might when confronted with the reality of a hard floor. What might happen if Rickett and Leiman did the same?
Amit Noy
A central microphone suspended from the flies, and hands tipped with bright red acrylic nails like those Dolly Parton famously used ‘washboard’ style, are clear if minimalistic allusions to the icon of talent and good heartedness. This solo is ‘both about and not about’ the artist who is ‘loved by everyone’ affirms choreographer Paxton Ricketts.
NDT dancer Keren Leiman’s movements are quicksilver: fast, fluid and fascinating, impossible to know in which direction they will flow next. Her short hair, brown slacks and brogues make her the physical anthesis of Parton, and indeed she seems to be inviting us to forget the musician’s bubbly persona and sink into something more sobering. A soundtrack of remastered concert out-takes also references forest fires (relief aid was championed by Parton) and the seminal Jolene is played slowed down. At the end of the piece, Leiman peels off her lacquered nails.
Seemingly sincere in its endeavour to deepen what our cultural idols can evoke, comparison with the original was a risk that here, ends desperately short on soul.
Oonagh Duckworth
What if the next concert you attended consisted only of song introductions – without ever playing the songs? As a mic lowers centre stage, it’s unclear whether we’re about to witness a wrestling match or a late-night show. A single circular spot illuminates Keren Leiman stretching quietly. ‘Jolene’ starts softly but never fully arrives; instead, Dolly Parton’s recorded voice addresses the audience.
Leiman shifts between speaking over, lip-syncing to, and dancing through Dolly’s words – those charming ‘in-between’ moments usually leading to a song. Here, dance replaces singing.
The lyrical choreography is beautiful to watch, even if the connection to the music and voice feels elusive. When an icon becomes everyone’s, does she lose her edge – or simply reflect our own?
The show doesn’t deconstruct nostalgia or idolisation, but it offers a tender, open-ended exploration: a dance without hard borders, a tribute without imitation.