HUMANHOOD Dance Company in ∞ {Infinite}
HUMANHOOD Dance Company’s ∞ {Infinite} is their first ‘Dance Theatre Meditation’ work. Can it really plug us back into our spiritual side? Also a first visit to the new Sadler’s Wells East…
HUMANHOOD Dance Company in ∞ {Infinite}. © Tom Visser
HUMANHOOD Dance Company
∞ {Infinite}
★★✰✰✰
London, Sadler’s Wells East
12 February 2025
humanhood.net
www.sadlerswells.com
I’ve never been to a “Dance Theatre Meditation” before, and sadly, I can’t say I’m very moved to go to another. I realised this not long into HUMANHOOD Dance Company’s ∞ {Infinite} when an otherworldly voice from above intoned, “You are a miracle” and “This moment is a miracle.” My candid response was, “This is soo not a miracle — I’m pretty bored by the dance I’m seeing which is slow and repetitive, I had a tedious journey here, and my left leg is nagging about the lack of legroom.” Good dance can truly take my soul to a great place, allowing the cares of today to melt away, but the very opposite seemed to be happening here.
HUMANHOOD Dance Company offers a quasi-religious dance experience based on their “shamanic practice.” I suspect the movement might have more resonance, and draw you in, if seen up close in some smoky space around a campfire with a ceremonial pipe or two. However, looking in on a stage intoning ancient practices is not, of itself, transportive; it feels more like a show for believers than one that entices newcomers. I guess the HUMANHOOD perspective would be that if just a handful of people connect with their deeper spiritual side, then their job is done.
∞ {Infinite}, lasts an hour and 15 minutes with no interval and is performed by 7 or 8 dancers over several scenes. The stage is black, and the dancers are identically clothed in very loose tops and trousers, also in black. Occasionally, they play with flashlights on a fully darkened stage — diverting for a while, but it looped on too long, and that really applied to most of the dance in ∞ {Infinite}. That said, it could be spectacularly beautiful, not so much in what any individual dancer did, but as a communal sculpture; the ever-shapeshifting bodies, tightly choreographed, pulsed with truly tribal and elemental energy. At other times, things would slow down, and I do mean slow (Zzzz). While the timing was tight, it felt unmoving and samey. Sadly, the show opened in slow mode, and the electronic setting in a rainforest echoed the action in either being thrilling or… usually not.
The best part of the show was towards the end when all the dancers took their tops off (nothing salacious) and let dazzling rip to pounding drums — more of that, please. But overall, I think it felt like 30 minutes of earthily, stretchy and twisty contemporary dance ideas in a 75-minute show. Not such a great place to be. However, come the end, some in the audience stood to applaud, and HUMANHOOD clearly connected with them.
This was my first visit to Sadler’s Wells East, the newly opened 500-seat theatre at Stratford in London’s East End. It’s a bustling area near the old Olympic Park with great transport links to the rest of London. Getting from Stratford station will be straightforward once you’ve done it, but the first time, leave extra minutes to navigate through all the endless shops and eateries of the huge Westfield centre.
The theatre is composed entirely of steeply raked stalls seats, and I do mean steep. If your legs are not so great, you might be better off sitting at the back of the seating — furthest from the stage, but with fewer steps. There are currently front-of-house problems leading to long queues to get into the auditorium because of bag searches — last night, the show started 15 minutes late. They say they don’t conduct a bag search to get into the theatre foyer because it’s an open building, but I note that the Royal Opera House is also open to all comers throughout the day, and there, they do conduct bag searches on building entry, which works a treat come curtain up.
Sight lines are brilliant and the seats themselves are nicely wide, but foot room is less than in the stalls at Sadler’s Wells proper, and my rebuilt knees were not so impressed, particularly after an hour. But overall it’s great to have a new space that allows for shows that would not be able to fill the 1,550-seat main house. I certainly look forward to seeing other performances there, and there is a lot coming up.