The Herd/Less, Sadler’s Wells East

Last Updated on October 10, 2026

South African Artist Mamela Niamza Returns to Dance Umbrella

2.0 out of 5.0 stars

The Herd/Less opened the live in-person section of this year’s Dance Umbrella festival at a poorly attended Sadler’s Wells East, once again illustrating the festival’s ongoing drift away from dance. Time was when you could look forward to London’s annual festival of dance in the expectation of seeing national and international acts that took dance to new, challenging places, which were, nevertheless, still recognisable as dance. I’m thinking here of choreographers like Lucinda Childs, Maguy Marin, Anna Teresa de Keersmaeker, and dancer/choreographers like Ireland’s Oona Doherty and South Africa’s Gregory Maqoma, to mention but a few. Then, year after year, the “umbrella” side become gradually wider to include things that weren’t quite dance, and the “dance” element itself shrank accordingly, to the point when one Dance Umbrella event a few years ago consisted of a young poet reading her poetry, having been briefed to include something – anything! – that mentioned dance. So, one of the poems she read talked about an outing to a disco.

The Herd/Less is not so distant from actual dance as a poetry reading, but cannot be classified as dance, not in the sense that we normally mean of codified (even if lightly) movement, preferably to some kind of soundscore. Theatre, yes. Choreography in the widest sense of the word, perhaps. Dance… no.

The mission statement of Dance Umbrella artistic director and CEO Freddie Opoku-Addaie speaks of bringing together “artists from around the world whose work challenges, celebrates and expands the way we think about movement, identity, place and connection.” The Herd/Less, the brand new work of South African artist Mamela Nyamza, certainly meets some of those requirements: the sight of its nine-strong cast, apparelled in colourful, outlandish costumes by Mamela Nyamza, Xolani Mawande and Shiba Sopotela, certainly transports the audience to a very different place, as does the rhythmic thumping that announces their arrival long before we actually see them.

After a long while of percussive sound, they emerge slowly onto semi-darkness, a close line of people seemingly shuffling forward on what, as the lights gradually go up, we see are large tin cans attached to their feet like improvised platform shoes. Very, very slowly they move in a straight line across the width of the stage, until a corridor of perpendicular white light appears (lighting design Thabo Pule) and they change direction to march slowly downstage. The same happens until they’ve covered all four sides of a light rectangle, still very slowly.

What The Herd/Less does not do is “expand the way we think about movement”, because apart from one performer in a white suit leading the stomping crocodile while balancing a spear on the palm of his hand, there’s very little actual movement from everybody else, just a monotonous, unchanging marching in line, that on first night sadly led to not a few walkouts. It’s hard to believe that Mamela Nyamza, who created, choreographed and directed The Herd/Less, had a stint as a student at the Alvin Ailey School in New York – The Herd/Less being the very opposite of Alvin Ailey’s vital movement and dance.

The stated aim of The Herd/Less is to explore “the dual meaning of ‘the herd’: a collective moving in harmony, and a group shaped and controlled by physical forces”. A laudable aim that fails in execution, since the idea of “herd’ is clearly established in that monotonous group movement, but doesn’t really develop. The performers get to shout out words in what I assume is one of South African’s languages, and at one point add to the rhythm by slapping their thighs. On the 45 minute mark of this one hour performance a burst of music, in the form of an. uncredited song, provides a brief moment of aural respite, before we return to all that tin can stomping.

Mamela Nyamza’a Hatched Ensemble, which opened Dance Umbrella 2024 to mixed reviews, went on to win the 2026 Venice Biennale Silver Lion. Like its predecessor, The Herd/Less starts from an interesting idea, but should perhaps go back to the drawing board.

The Herd/Less is at Sadler’s Wells East 8 – 10 October at 7.30 pm
Dur.: 65 mins no interval. Tickets: £15 – 30

Sadler’s Wells East
Stratford Walk
Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park
London E20 2AA

See also our Dance Umbrella 2026 Preview