Entity Review

How much of our movement is instinctive and how much comes from intention? Is it chemical processes that make us move the way we do or are our movements premeditated expressions of ourselves? This neuro-scientific maze is where Wayne McGregor’s Entity finds its space to explore.

Entity is an hour long trip, an exploration, a journey. The audience is carried along with the dancers amongst a technically striking, multimedia sensation of a piece; unrelenting both physically and musically. Symbiotically linking sound and movement with visual nods to the language of geometry encourages a more scientific understanding of the physical interactions.

Mcgregor works with a distinct purpose, rejecting vague creative processes and instead involving his work in the connection between body and brain, analysing the reason for movement as much as the aesthetics of form; testing what the body is physically and psychologically capable of. Choreographically the work incorporates beautiful extensions with frantic solo and group sections as the dancers indulge the capabilities of their forms as if for the first time, with inspired glimpses of classical ballet in its most taught and trained sense.

The journey is punctuated by the contrasting soundscape of pounding bass and classical instruments morphed into the sharp, electronic elements of the score. Composers Jon Hopkins and Joby Talbot have created a remarkable piece that perfectly showcases the work and lifts the final scene to a fantastic crescendo both literally and emotionally as the choreography gains the height and frantic pace it has hinted at throughout.

The result of this cacophony of sound, bodies and science is a fantastic experience of a piece; whilst the multimedia elements fall short of their potential, the set itself is strikingly interactive in this collaboration in which art and science meld convincingly; and sound and movement captivate.

Read our preview of Entity.