As soon as one enters the wonderful rounded shapes and warm smells of the QEH Theatre the mood is set for the performance of Jacqueline Jamal and Robyn Friend: it is a colourful, mainly female, welcoming environment.  Women in swirling richly-coloured velvets and embroidered evening clothes mingle excitedly, fingering the coinbelts and scarves on a stall. They drink wine, and dip into the Hard Rak café’s wonderful Middle Eastern delicacies.

The semi-circular stage is ideally suited to this type of performance, the horseshoe seating reducing the divide between the dancers and their audience, and joining rather than isolating spectators from one another.  And as the show progresses everyone is drawn further and further into the feeling of belonging, being part of the spectacle.

Tapestry was dedicated to Medea Mehdavi, who was unable to dance due to the recent death of her father.  Her absence was felt because we had hoped to see her wonderful dancing, not because (and this is due to Robyn and Jacqui’s professionalism) there were any ‘holes’ in the performance.

As suggested by the name “Tapestry”, the overwhelming impression of the show is of contrasts making a beautiful whole.  The most immediate difference is between the two dancers, but there was also a huge range of styles displayed by each dancer -- Robyn’s dances from Western Uzbekistan, Armenia, and Persia/Iran, interspersed by Jacqui’s Egyptian ones (Saidi, Baladi, Zaar, Tabla, to name a few).

The contrast in dance styles was emphasised by the differences in dress, from Jacqui’s hip-centric costumes to Robyn’s long and lean, and primarily darkly coloured ones, emphasizing her hands -- for example small embroidered pillbox hat atop hip-length dark plaits, long slim sleeves, straight bodice/ tunic above slightly flared skirt, with trousers and small-heeled boots worn underneath. In Robyn’s dances the focus is on wonderful hand, arm and head movements, and the body is secondary, with footwork almost irrelevant (from the audience’s point of view) apart from providing a means of floating around the stage.

Robyn’s hands were mesmerizing.  From the first dance (Lyazgi, from Western Uzbekistan) the audience was captured by the dainty flirtiness of her shivering wrists, tinkling many-belled bracelets, and the percussive accompaniment of her finger-clicks and snaps (a much deeper noise, produced by a movement I haven’t seen before – her palms together, the snap made inside this echo-chamber).

In the Armenian dance Robyn watches her hands, as transfixed by their floating and curling as the audience is.  They have a life of their own, and in the darkened theatre they no longer look like hands, more like elegant white birds.  The shapes and movements within the dance have something of the Japanese aesthetic of purity of line, combined with Romantic images of medieval maidens waving their Lochinvar goodbye – huge reserves of yearning simmering beneath the contained elegance.

This contrasted wonderfully with the very saucy Persian ‘felt hat song’ (Kolah Makhmali), Robyn teasing the audience with shoulder nudges, finger clicks and rump tips, really enjoying this dance, as did the audience: wonderful technique, great vocals, and what a hat!  It was wonderful that the singing in this, and in ‘Layla and Majnun’, is by Robyn herself.

These dances were counterpointed to great effect by Jacqui’s performances, where the emphasis was firmly on hips and body.  From Robyn’s floating elegance we moved to Jacqui’s full layered costume of Upper Egypt in wonderful warm rust and peach tones, and a stunning turban headdress.  The movements are relaxed, earthed, hips and arms playing with gravity to swing and bounce, the Nubian dance welcoming the audience in with swirling skirts and hip drops.
Jacqui follows this with a sword dance, exploring the pyramid from wonderful fluttering hip shimmies up to sinuous arms and shoulders, then up further still to the calm head surmounted by the shining curved blade.  The dance ends in a spin that goes on for longer than one would have thought possible.

The Taqasim –  intense, inward-looking expressions of lost love – are followed by a game with the audience.  Jacqui wanted to perform a Tabla Solo, so offered the drum to members of the audience.  To varying degrees of competency they obliged, playing rhythms for Jacqui to dance to.  Then she ‘found’ a professional.  What a noise! A chair was proffered, and John Sleiman sat down, ready to play for her Tabla Solo.  But another member of the audience asked if they too could have a go!  Help! Luckily it soon becomes clear that it is not the disaster it could have been – he too is a professional, and off they go, John on  Tabla, Chas Whitaker on  Dohollah, and Jacqui with her body …… It is like a jazz jam session: sometimes Jacqui is following, using hips, shoulders, arms (‘the major joints of the body’) to echo and play with the drummers’ rhythms, at other times she leads them, playing with tempo and movement-type.  They have a wonderful time, relishing each others’ skill, testing the boundaries – and then the audience is brought in: “clap clap clap”.  It is great to be part of the on-stage game.

We are shaken from our light-heartedness by the solemn eerie Zaar rhythm coming from the large moon of Chas’ drum.  From the controlled specifics of the Tabla Solo we enter the heavy gravity-led movements of a trance dance. At last, weighed down by swinging arms and swirling head Jacqui can no longer stand, and she continues her dance kneeling, lost in the cathartic physical outpouring, distanced from her surroundings by the hypnotic drums until she can go on no longer, and collapses, supplicant to the experience.  The drums continue, and the audience’s mind swirls in sympathy with what we imagine Jacqui’s inert body must be feeling.

The show ended with a duet in which Robyn and Jacqui played with the movements from the other’s style, exchanging hip drops and wrist-flutters.  It was very clear how much they pleasure they had in working together, and how fruitful the week before the show had been -- Robyn had flown over from the States on Monday and the pair had worked to make their virtual show a reality.

For me, the highlights of the show were Robyn’s hat dance and the shock of the new-to-me very elegant Uzbekistani Lyazgi with shivering wrist bells, and head slides, and Jacqui’s fusion dance to Nitin Sawhney’s “Beyond Skin”, where her costume mix (hair swept back into a flowered Spanish bun at the nape of her neck, Indian wedding sari over Egyptian dress) and mix of dance styles echoed the variety within the music, illustrating the  happy synergy which can be achieved by forgoing purity of source.  From the opening Indian vocals Jacqui enjoys the music, playing with the Spanish guitars and singing, flowing through the dreamy elegance of the sweeping Northern European strings, throwing herself into the base drums, getting down and dirty, each movement influenced by the music, melding styles to create a cohesive surprising whole.  Fantastic.