How do you capture the present, the amorphous, slippery now, when, in the very act of noticing it, it has already disappeared into the past? Jasmin Vardimon’s latest work, NOW, at the newly opened Sadler’s Wells East, grapples with this paradox, attempting to record ephemeral moments before they slip away. Through movement, the piece seeks to capture the sliding scales of multiple nows—the past nows, the future nows, the collective nows and all the illusory nows in between. Celebrating 25 years of Vardimon’s company, this nonlinear narrative layers old and new ideas into ever evolving perspectives.
The piece opens with two perfectly poised protestors waving fluttering white truce flags, frozen smiles stretched over high cheekbones as they sway mechanically to eerily optimistic classical music. This moment of relative stillness feels delicate, a palpably fragile peace soon broken, inverted and interrogated by eight technically astute dancers over the next 90 minutes.
Both playful and political, the dancers question our relationship between personal nows and wider geopolitical nows. “We are sharing our now, and yet our now is different,” they ruminate, sliding across the floor like a conveyor belt, finishing each other’s sentences in a perpetual attempt to hold onto the present. The execution feels slightly loose, yet it opens up urgent questions about our current realities—peace and war, global catastrophes, surrender, oppression, dissent, and love.
Frontal and overhead hidden cameras distort the dancers’ movements, casting new perspectives on the back of the stage in a kind of voyeuristic surveillance. A distinctly Trumpian moment emerges as one dancer projects, “What is the best nation?” only to cheekily answer, “Imagination.”
The performance gains momentum when two dancers become news presenters, reporting on conflict, famine and loss. Their controlled movements escalate in speed and vigour as they struggle to keep pace with the rapidly evolving headlines. Yet the quicker they move, the faster new content generates, rendering each update obsolete before it can even be registered. This sequence unfolds against the backdrop of the billowing white truce flag, which deteriorates into thousands of pieces of confetti—pieces of peace scattered across the stage.
A striking moment of choreography unravels as a dancer sweeps white confetti into a chessboard pattern, the black stage floor cutting through. The dancers, now in full red or white, are confined to their squares, like borders that dictate their movements. They clash with opponents in opposing colours, part of a wider political game where unseen forces control them like pawns.
A romantic narrative threads through the piece, offering moments of temporary respite, yet their love, like the rest of the performance, is fleeting. Projections of rib cages and beating hearts flicker across the dancers’ chests, carefully captured and passed between lovers in an admirable feat of production. Yet they collapse together, buried beneath white confetti, which swirls around them like a pyroclastic ash cloud, engulfing them as the earth falls apart.
Beyond the nihilistic and semi-absurdist scenes, the choreography is impressively innovative and playful. A rope first serves as a tightrope, then transforms into a staircase for aid workers to climb. On the floor, the dancers writhe in jolting, erratic movements along the rope, while projections on the back wall distort the perspective, as if they are dancing on a tightrope and scaling the stairs in a meticulously executed feat of illusion.
This performance is so richly packed that it is impossible to mine all its golden moments, but Jasmin Vardimon certainly has her finger firmly on the pulse of the times.
Review by Florence Marling
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Featured Image – Jasmin Vardimon’s NOW, Image-Credit-Ben-Harries, 5-8th March 2025 at Sadler’s Wells East
Concept, direction & choreography: Jasmin Vardimon MBE
Created with & performed by: Evie Hart, Sean Moss, Hobie Schouppe, Juliette Telier, Donny Beau Ferris, Risa Maki, Andre Rebelo
Set design: Guy Bar-Amotz & Jasmin Vardimon MBE
Coming soon Jasmin Vardimon – ALiCE – Sadler’s Wells Theatre
