According to my x40 archives this is the first time I have actually been to see a Sir Wayne McGregor production.. Out of all of them that I could have chosen, it seems I chose the wrong one. Now after a start like that, how good is this review going to be? Well it’s going to be fair… Credit where it is due, the standard of the dance and movement in this piece is outstanding, exactly what you would expect from a choreographer such as McGregor. True to form McGregor intertwines his company dancers together with new and ground-breaking technologies in order to create a spectacle for the senses.. all of them… perhaps just not mine.

This performance marked my return to see a performance at Sadlers Wells in Angel, London. Prior to this my last visit was in August of 2023 (I can’t believe it’s been that long, wow)! I had a great end-of-row seat on row AA (which means they’ve got the extra seating out). I was on the far left-hand side of the main Stalls section in the 4th row back. The view was great. Better than that of the first row, as they miss the footwork with the stage being set quite high up. The legroom was great too, people could get in and out without me having to stand up etc. Width of the seats is standard for the UK, meaning it was for me a very snug fit. The auditorium was busy but it was not ‘sold out’ as the website suggested, or if it was, several people didn’t turn up to see it. I didn’t bother with a programme for this performance.

Let’s talk about the stage and the set for a moment, or lack of one. As we all know, for Dance, there is often no set to speak of, with sound, lighting and the actual movement of the dancers all taking focus, but for this performance, McGregor was playing around with a new type of ‘black’ colour. One which is supposed to be the blackest of black, it is called Vantablack and is made by a company in the UK in July of 2014 called NanoSystems. Inventor Ben Jensen created it as a coating that absorbs almost 100% of visible light and it is made of carbon nanotubes. It’s use within Deepstaria is intended to create a void. A blackest of black box in to which we are to peer. – Deepstaria in it’s simplest form is a tale about a Jellyfish as Sir Alistair Spalding suggested in his post-show interview with Sir Wayne McGregor (to which McGregor recoiled at), so we are looking into the void that is the deep sea.

The use of Vantablack is quite a challenge for Company Wayne McGregor dancers to work with as it absorbs over 99% of visible light therefore making it hard for the dancers to see where they are on stage, relying upon muscle memory and other senses for their correct positions and locations. They even rehearsed in darkness too. This makes their choreographed movement and improvisation even more impressive in my mind. – I say improvisation because of an answer to a question that McGregor gave post-performance. He was asked to explain if his dancers are allowed to improvise any parts of their routine. Quite the arrogant answer came from McGregor (perhaps steel reeling from having his latest creation boiled down to ‘a tale about a jellyfish’) moments earlier. McGregor talks about his obsession with the deep sea to offer some kind of explanation and suggests watching his dancers perform other pieces to see if they are allowed to improvise. He finds no redeeming qualities of dancers dancing in unison and relies quite a lot on dancers improvising their movements. He used this skill in order to co-create this piece. So in summary, the ‘set’ was simply a vantablack square at the rear of the stage. The rest of the stage was lit in the traditional for dance, way of doing things, from the sides. However, in a move away from traditional, McGregor employs the services of Lighting Designer Theresa Baumgartner who uses moving lights set on the sides of the stage as well as from above. The lighting from above seems to replicate a shower of water raining down on to the dancers and the stage. Additionally, LED style strip lighting from above illuminates the rest of the down-stage area. Finally for lighting, there is a section towards the end of the performance were the dancers are wearing a very light, very translucent material that moves with their movement like it would if cloth were moving in water. Except the stage is bathed in ultraviolet blacklight. This creates a unique effect against the visible draining effect of the vantablack void.

The Vantablack void on its own was impressive, it really was blacker than black, and it did seem to absorb the visible light when I think back to it. But to be completely honest, after my initial research in to the performance as a whole, I had forgotten everything but the theme of the dance. I had forgotten about the use of AI, the lighting design or the inclusion of the vantablack on stage. I just wish it had been used more creatively than a black square void. During the post-show discussion, a question was asked about how do you keep the use of new technologies on the right side of becoming gimmicky, and it was answered by McGregor… But I am not sure I completely bought the answer, nor am I sure that it was on the right side of gimmicky. If used more creatively with set pieces coated in it for example, I think it could have been even more effective on the overall performance.

The score was created by DJ / Producing duo called LEXX. It honestly took me back to college and hearing some of the scores that the lecturers used to come up with for student’s modern dance projects. I am not saying it was bad by any means, but for me, personally, it lacked any kind of coherent rhythm. This was aided by the use of an AI tool called Bronze AI. I don’t know much about it personally, but it seems to be a system which will take your music and make live changes to it during performances, potentially making each performance completely unique. I believe it has been created or produced by LEXX too, looking it up online, it doesn’t appear to be available to play around with as yet. The actual soundtrack to Deepstaria was… annoying to say the least. I can only describe it as someone taking and recording annoying sounds and looping them in to some kind of order, to which the dancers performed. For me there was no connection between the movement and motion of the dance and the drone of the soundtrack. (I like droning soundtracks, but this one just rubbed me and seemingly other audience members the wrong way).

Apparently I was not alone in my dismay at not only the soundtrack but the performance in general. The dancers are in this situation, blameless. They are simply dancing to the material they have been instructed to do so. But the quality of your dance company can only carry things so far. One reviewer going so far as to call it “unforgivable twaddle” – Stuart King. But I won’t go that far. Another suggested it was “too long” with “a man next to me looking at his watch several times and me resisting the urge to do the same” – Lily Middleton I will simply say that it wasn’t completely to my taste and that I was expecting more from such a forward thinking choreographer such as McGregor, particularly with the close-connection of Dance and new technologies. How reviewer Lyndsey Winship from The Guardian gives the performance four out of five stars is frankly beyond me.

In summary.. I would have to think twice now before seeing a Wayne McGregor performance. I feel like I’ve seen so much better performances from companies with less experience in the dance space, who are utilising technology in the same or better ways than McGregor. Even the inclusion of AI, a huge interest area for me didn’t set off my inspiration meter. The Matthew Bourne version of Swan Lake which I have seen earlier this week was in comparison.. no comparison. Better in every single way. I think I would need to see another McGregor piece to really know if he’s a choreographer who deserves a place on my list of favorites or if I should spend my money elsewhere. The lighting was, by far the best part of this piece. Nevertheless, it was lovely to be able to return to Sadlers Wells and to see another performance on that hallowed stage. Back for more soon!