On Friday 24th February 2023 I had the pleasure of attending a show at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (known as LIPA). This was to watch a Dance Performance titled “Rebooted”. This was a BA (Hons) Dance 3rd (final) year presentation show danced by all the final year Students. It was held in the Paul McCartney Auditorium on the LIPA City Center campus. I’ve never been inside LIPA before this show, so the venue was a new one for me, but the subject matter – Dance is very much my forte. I was joined this evening by some family members and I can honestly say I didn’t feel any of the Anxiety that has previously plagued my attendance of new venues in the past. Be that down to having company to attend this show with, or being a persisting side effect of the good feelings I had attending the last event that I did, I really do not know, but some things I feel best not to question, particularly if they themselves result in a positive outcome.

The Performance wasn’t due to start till 19:30 so we met around 6pm and went for a quick bite to eat in The Quarter nearby beforehand. After a nice cocktail in there we headed over to the Venue. The house was already open upon our arrival so we took to our seats. The venue would best be described as a classical auditorium with stalls and rear stalls in an almost semi-circle layout, with the Circle above. The stage was.. average sized (but it looked small and packed with a full group of Students on it). It surprised me that the flooring was not sprung and there were no apparent dance mats down, so the Students were performing on a hard-wood stage, which only made some of the lifts & drops more impressive. But more on that later.

Unfortunately the seating in the stalls was not raked, and with everyone on the same level, seeing past the person in front was for some a problem. Thankfully my guests had a good view through to the stage, but I had Mr. Fidget sitting right in front of me. I am sorry, but he was simply not interested in what was happening on the stage at all. I mean why bother coming at all? He was all over the place, lolling on the seat, spreading out over two seats etc and so to be honest, for me, I could pretty much forget seeing anything on DSL. Thankfully, they did seem to favor the center and right of the stage more, so apart from the general annoyance of Mr. Fidget and the frankly disrespectful people behind us literally talking through the entire performance… – I mean literally why bother paying out to see a show, to be entertained when all you are going to do is talk through the entire thing? – Stay home and do that, let those of us who wish to be entertained enjoy being entertained. – I seem to have some sort of magnetism towards hearing people talking at shows, I can’t seem to see one where the audience is completely respectful of the activities the performers are giving to us. I wish I could tune out from these audience annoyances.

Anyway, pretty much on time (unusually), the performance piece started. “Rebooted” was billed as being inspired by “The Matrix”, a classic 90’s Cyberpunk, sci-fi film. So what I went in expecting was to see a dance performance inspired by the Matrix… But what we actually saw was a set of twenty-two difference pieces of choreography all tied together with Matrix inspired Music and original compositions. It was the entire story of “The Matrix” told in Dance. That’s not to say it didn’t work, it worked incredibly well, but I think within the context of a final year Student production, rather than what a Professional Dance Company might produce. – This was certainly evident in how hard & fast the Students went at the choreography that they were performing, with the intensity that they did. It was in total a 90 minute performance across the twenty two acts, – a good length (but far too long for Mr. Fidget).

The acts had titles that tie into the story-line beats of “The Matrix” such as ‘The Prophecy’, ‘Agents’, ‘First Contact’, ‘Resistance’ and many more and while there were some solo and duo performances, the majority were ensemble performances with either groups of the Students or the entire Final Year Dance Students sharing somewhat limited amount of space on the stage. All of the Students deserve a round of applause for their style and effort that was clear to see by their performances on this hallowed stage, however, as always there were a few standout performances. Arguably one of the leads of the piece was Trinity who was during this performance portrayed by Lottie Barton who was dressed in a shiny black one-piece with an open back covered with Dance Pants below. This looked stunning and portrayed the feeling and style of Trinity from “The Matrix”. She had a removable full-length coat very much styled upon the ascetic of the films. Ms. Barton performed in the Prologue ‘The Prophecy’ in a duet with Nethra Menon, another mentionable Dancer who played the part of The Oracle, ‘First Contact’ in a duet with Daniel Millard (Neo). ‘Trinity’ as a solo dance which was one of the stand-out performances of the night, incidentally choreographed by Ms. Barton herself. ‘Red Pill’, ‘Down The Rabbit Hole’, ‘Glitch in the Matrix’, ‘Ambush’ and ‘The One’ as part of an ensemble with either the Full Company or a smaller selection of Students. An ethereal triple was danced by Ms. Barton, Ms. Menon and Mr. Millard called ‘Dreamstate’ was another high-point of the whole performance with the final piece being a soulful and emotion-filled duet shared by Ms. Barton and Mr. Willard (Trinity & Neo respectively). I think many people in the audience felt that these final two pieces of choreography were among the best in the whole show. Moby’s “When It’s Cold I’d Like to Die” was used within ‘Dreamstate’ and ‘Epilogue’ and was a piece of music that was used throughout as a main theme.

The other outstanding Dancer who I made a note of was Christina Vasileiadi. She portrayed the part of Mouse which if you have ever watched “The Matrix” you would know was a fan-favorite part, integral to the storyline. Ms. Vasileiadi was stunning to watch and to me seemed to share alongside Ms. Barton and Ms. Menon the kind of performance-ready attitude that most working dancers have to have in order to rise up above their fellow Students and ‘make-it’ within the ultra-competitive world of Professional Dance. I would make a note of the Dancers mentioned as in the years to come I would not be surprised if we see them in performances at Sadlers Wells and other infamous stages worldwide.

The style of the majority of the dance featured in the whole show could easily be described as frenetic.. Sometimes – for me, perhaps a little too much. But that’s just my personal preference. Thankfully there were changes of pace throughout the full set of acts and many if not most styles of dance seemed to be covered by the full company of Students in Rebooted. The piece was lit by lighting designers Olivia Charneux who herself is a Student studying at LIPA, with performance-appropriate styling throughout, seemingly staying away from the usual dance style of lighting (side stage) and going for a far more dynamic feel and ascetic for this performance. Frankly this was refreshing to see. Still using bold colors throughout it was a pleasure to watch and a compliment to the dancers performing on stage.

As with most of these Dance performances, the proof is in the pudding and I would say ‘Go see it’ if you can, however at this point in time, the only performance of this show left will be its final performance this evening. As this is a Student Production from LIPA, it won’t have the opportunity to tour at all. That said however, really watch this space for these standout dancers and to be fair look out in general for the superbly talented Students from LIPA, graduating this year and I am sure they hope to find their ways into the performing arts world sometime in the future. Really glad I got to go and see this one and I don’t think I’d hesitate to go and see other performances in this venue, now armed with a better understanding of the seating arrangements within. In fact, there are two more shows I have just booked. Look out for them in Upcoming Experiences via x40.