Dance artists who feature in Nikki Milican's New Territories usually have a radically bold take on choreographic practice. These opening programmes certainly side-stepped the mainstream with persuasive conviction, producing work that rewarded concentration by sending thoughts and imaginings into energising freefall.
Still, choreographed and performed by Anna Krzystek, with live soundscore by Tom Murray and film by Lucy Cash, pitches in between a solo of thrillingly controlled, starkly delineated movement and an art installation. Five monitors, ranged across the space, pass around shifting images of another room in another time. Real time is punctuated by high-pitched pulses, low dronings and outbursts of abrasively scratchy noise. Within this context, Krzystek's body writes her repeating loops of precise action: head pivoting in detailed searches, foot probing and mapping the floor, every move a study in uncluttered, poised intensity, the moments of stillness every bit as compelling. It's as if you're spying on different dimensions at once.
A fascinating disorientation overtakes you in U-Raging Standstill, an individual excursion into a "virtual environment" where you place your trust, and your guiding senses, in the hands - or rather the sophisticated headset - of the Belgium-based performance group Crew. I was so busy listening for instructions - move here, step this way - that I scarcely took in the spooky narrative scenario that was whispering through the headphones.
But the effect of moving through a space I couldn't see - were the images in my headset actual or a trick? - was unnerving yet truly exhilarating.
Afterwards, the mind races to catch up, trying to be honest about the uncertainties you discover in some fathomless unknown that's as much inside your head as in their headset. It runs until Saturday; go for it while you can.
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