Christos Papadopoulos - Larsen C
Christos Papadopoulos’ Larsen C, nominated for the 2025 Rose Prize, is named after the slowly breaking up Antarctic ice sheet.
Larsen C by Christos Papadopoulos. © Pinelopi Gerasimou for Onassis Stegi.
Christos Papadopoulos
Larsen C
★★★✰✰
nominated for the Rose International Dance Prize
London, Sadler’s Wells
4 February 2025
christospapadopoulos.art
www.sadlerswells.com
About 30 minutes into Christos Papadopoulos’s Larsen C, I was feeling pretty happy. It might have been a slow build, but I was seeing interesting, eye-catching movement that I hadn’t seen before — yeah!
Twenty minutes later, I was starting to get fidgety and bored at the slowness with which ideas emerged and then got repeated rather too much. And by the end (roughly 70 minutes in), I felt downright resentful that I was losing valuable drinking time in the Shakespeare’s Head. Amidst all the excited applause was a notable “Boo”, a rare happening at the Wells — harsh, possibly, but I wasn’t the only one whose patience had been tested by a work in need of a big edit.
Perhaps the slowness of Larsen C should not be surprising; it takes its name from the huge Antarctic ice sheet, currently breaking up, and “…explores the universal patterns of change and the monumental shifts occurring around the world.” That said, Papadopoulos’s personal note in the programme is a little more unfathomable than the headline marketing might suggest.
At its best, the movement is intriguing and beautiful, concentrating initially on just the arms and torso, with the head and below-knee legs blacked out from the side lighting. Clever, unseen footwork has the bodies gently and eerily gliding across the stage. To a slowly building electronic score, the six dancers perform individually and then in groups, sometimes their bodies seeming like kelp fronds gently buffeted by waves above. At other times, the action is more mechanical, as if the dancers’ limbs are being manipulated in the manner of Kermit the Frog. Either way, rather mesmerising especially with chic black costumes and lighting casting interesting shadows.
Slowly, things evolve, and the lighting and dancing become more expansive, though groups are tightly integrated with much pulsing repetition. The soundtrack builds to a particularly grating and blaring Cathedral organ — think Hammer Gothic horror. We also get some laser lighting effects that reach out into the auditorium and cut through industrial quantities of haze to show individual dancers in strange, distorted shadows. Initially arresting, by the end of the first dancer’s laser play, we’ve seen all we need, but sadly more dancers pop out for their moment to rinse and repeat, leaving you wishing for the fast forward button. It just feels like a gratuitous party trick that well outstays its welcome.
As Larsen C builds to the end, all six dancers shuffle and waft around the stage as a tight group, then disperse and recombine. Repeat, repeat. However, by then, I feel I’ve seen enough of this slow world. But yet we have to wind down (very slowly) to a single dancer fidgeting and shuffling back into the darkness, in what seems like hours, but of course isn’t.
Papadopoulos and dancers are in London because they have been nominated for the inaugural Rose Prize at Sadler’s Wells. The long list of nominations — which we do not see — comes from “a global network of dance producers, presenters and festival directors” (Guardian). That makes for a much wider perspective and the list of seven nominations is not full of the usual suspects - I very much like that. The winner, chosen by a panel of five, chaired by Prof Christopher Bannerman and notably featuring PJ Harvey and Arlene Phillips, will be announced on Saturday (8 February 2025), immediately after the final performance. The Rose Prize, along with its companion Bloom Prize for emerging choreographers, is no fleeting initiative either; funding is secured to continue the prize every two years into the 2040s. While Larsen C may not have fully resonated, it’s very much an initiative I welcome and one we should all support.