I was initially attracted to this show due to the contributions of musicians Jon Hopkins, who has collaborated with Coldplay and Massive Attack, and award-winning composer Joby Talbot of The Divine Comedy. They have provided the soundscape for this show, as a component of Wayne Macgregor's contemporary dance choreography, lighting scheme, and moving images. It is claimed that MacGregor's cutting edge work defies categorisation, but I'll give it a go.
The music and dance styles separated this one-hour show into a number of different sections. Firstly, a black and white clash of supple, toned bodies twisted into many uncompromising positions. This melding of flesh, like some obscure mating ritual, was compounded by ripping violin strings and a bass that creaked like a timber hull on an unpleasant sea. It was stuttered, muddled, with a suggestion of violence, and at one point a girl was waved around like a Rottweiler with a rag doll. Ouch!
Developing from this austere lesson of the animal world, the black and white gave way to more fleshy (literally), softer movements, with moving images, although interspersed with mathematical equations, providing a sense of something organic. The violin strings dropped away and were replaced with a more industrial sound and my feeling was that I was being delivered from both the cold cynicism of science and the brutality of the natural world, finding something far more organic and harmonious as the piece moved forward.
I can't go into the intricacies of the dancing, as I know nothing about it on a technical level (I don't even watch Strictly Come Dancing!), but suffice to say it was used as a powerful tool of communication. I did feel that some of the sequences were too long, particularly at the beginning, and it was difficult not to miss out on something as there was always a lot happening on stage. But it is a very fine piece of work with a strong, cohesive narrative, which made it a far more enjoyable experience than I thought it would be.
The music and dance styles separated this one-hour show into a number of different sections. Firstly, a black and white clash of supple, toned bodies twisted into many uncompromising positions. This melding of flesh, like some obscure mating ritual, was compounded by ripping violin strings and a bass that creaked like a timber hull on an unpleasant sea. It was stuttered, muddled, with a suggestion of violence, and at one point a girl was waved around like a Rottweiler with a rag doll. Ouch!
Developing from this austere lesson of the animal world, the black and white gave way to more fleshy (literally), softer movements, with moving images, although interspersed with mathematical equations, providing a sense of something organic. The violin strings dropped away and were replaced with a more industrial sound and my feeling was that I was being delivered from both the cold cynicism of science and the brutality of the natural world, finding something far more organic and harmonious as the piece moved forward.
I can't go into the intricacies of the dancing, as I know nothing about it on a technical level (I don't even watch Strictly Come Dancing!), but suffice to say it was used as a powerful tool of communication. I did feel that some of the sequences were too long, particularly at the beginning, and it was difficult not to miss out on something as there was always a lot happening on stage. But it is a very fine piece of work with a strong, cohesive narrative, which made it a far more enjoyable experience than I thought it would be.