Last Updated on April 26, 2026
A Solo Show by the Compelling Canadian Dancer
3.0 out of 5.0 stars
Louise Lecavalier’s Danses Vagabondes is hard to pigeonhole. If by dance you mean any movement to music, then this is it: some 70 minutes of high energy tiptoeing at speed back and forth, side to side and around the stage, restless arms and hands creating fluttering figures, against the background of a pixilated screen, where varying colours and configurations succeed each other, the whole dictated by repetitive percussive music by the likes of Dawn of Midi, The Black Dog, Nils Frahm, and finally the deep growl of Nick Cave.
Louise Lecavalier’s performances at Sadler’s Wells East are a fitting finale for the Elixir Festival, a month-long multi-disciplinary celebration of creative ageing. Now 67-years-old, the Canadian dancer is no longer the breathtaking, gravity-defying performer of her earlier years, but she’s lost none of the physicality of those days. She simply channelled it to a different concept of dance.
A native of Montreal, she first came to international prominence as a member of the ground-breaking, high-octane Canadian company La La La Human Steps, which she joined in 1981. She left in 1999 to undertake individual projects before forming her own company. She collaborated with David Bowie and Frank Zappa, as well as with the Bolshoi Ballet, her name always pronounced by dance enthusiasts with awed reverence.
Lecavalier never stopped performing, dancing in works by choreographers including Crystal Pite and increasingly choreographing her own works. Dances Vagabondes is her latest piece.
It’s inspired by the Italian physicist and writer Carlo Rovelli’s work Écrits Vagabonds, an anthology of essays on a mind-blowing range of topics, from Nabokov’s Lolita, to LSD and black holes, to mention but a few.
Loosely inspired, I would say, as none of that really transpires in an essentially abstract show, which grips and intrigues at first, but doesn’t really sustain its duration.
Louise Lecavalier appears barefoot, wrapped in a black hooded cloak, its bleakness lightened by two gold print panels. Her signature platinum blonde hair is braided, but will later be released into a cascade that will eventually get its own sequence of hairography.
As if plugged into electricity, her entire body vibrates as she glides on tiptoe along boxes and paths shaped by Jean-François Piché’s creative lighting. Her movement builds into a frenzy, mirrored by the pixilated screen upstage, its shape morphing from square to narrow rectangle, to a simple white line and back again, colours changing, courtesy of Piché and Marlene Millar’s video design.
Her hands and arms never stop moving, side to side, up and down, clutching her torso as it leans sideways, fingers curling or pointing, while she paces the stage incessantly, jogging in place, hopping, as if in the throes of a particularly virulent tarantella.
On the half-hour mark, the frenzy abates momentarily, while she sits down stage right to put on black socks and remove her cloak, leaving her with a satin hoodie. That, too, will eventually be jettisoned, revealing a body-hugging sleeveless top.
Her movement, however, is repetitive, deliberately so, I’m sure, but the result is that as it goes on, so it somehow loses power, and I found my mind wandering at ever more frequent intervals.
Lecavalier’s physicality remains awesome, and I feel Danses Vagabondes would have had more of an impact as a shorter piece within a mixed bill. I found sections of it mesmerising, and it’s always a privilege to watch such a unique dancer. Sadly, though, memories are short and getting shorter, and Sadler’s Wells East was barely half-full for her first show. However, the scant audience stood as one to show Louise Lecavalier the warm appreciation she has undoubtedly earned.
Louise Lecavalier, Danses Vagabondes is at Sadler’s Wells East 25 & 27 April
Sadler’s Wells East
Stratford Walk
Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park
London E20 2AR
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