“I’M SO tired I can’t even cry,” sings Amy Winehouse in What It Is, a song about a mutually damaging relationship that would seem more suited to the dancefloor of a night club than the dancefloor of a theatre.
But the piece, from her first album, Frank, is one of two by the London-born singer-songwriter to form the soundtrack to a new work by Leeds-based company Phoenix Dance.
Choreographed by Philip Taylor, What It Is is one of four pieces that make up Phoenix’s latest production, Reflected, touring to the Liverpool Playhouse later this month.
“The choreographer kept talking about how Amy Winehouse is very raw and passionate and he wanted that to come across in how we were dancing,” says Phil Sanger, one of three dancers in the work about a love triangle.
“It starts off with a female solo into a male duet, and at the very end you find who the piece is actually about and it’s an autobiographical piece about a situation he was in.”
The programme for Reflected is packed with pop music – it also includes tunes by The Strokes and Southport band Gomez – which Sanger hopes will make it appeal to a non-typical dance audience.
“It was quite strange for some of the dancers when we realised we were going to be dancing to something that’s not particularly classical or abstract,” he says. “It was a nice change. It makes the programme a bit lighter.
