Review: LAST AND FIRST MEN - NEON DANCE, Coronet Theatre

Sci-fi, like most things, is an acquired taste, and not something you often find related to dance. Enter The Coronet Theatre for once again pushing the boundaries of avant-garde programming.

Last And First Men (2024) by Neon Dance is a multimedia work that definitely gets the brain working in pre-performance research and post-show afterthought. The live experience itself is a slightly confusing one in relation to content, intention and cohesion.

The backdrop is Johann Jóhannsson‘s apocalyptic 16mm black and white film (2020) inspired by Olaf Stapledon’s 1930 sci-fi novel of the same name. Tilda Swinton narrates the screenplay written by Jóhannsson and José Enrique Macián, and the film is accompanied by Jóhannsson and Yair Elazar Gotman's orchestral score.

This may already sound busy…but then we have Adrienne Hart's choreography further layered on top. There are definitely moments of harmony, where all mediums find purposeful connection, but there's also ample examples of the opposite. Where should I look? Why are they doing that? We've seen this footage before etc.

The three dancers (specifically Fukiko Takase) do a good job of bringing presence and believability to Stapledon’s characters, I believe the 18th version of humanity now residing on Neptune some two billion years in the future, but I could be wrong - as Swinton shares a lot of information, and things aren't necessarily chronological.

Jóhannsson‘s score is indeed atmospheric, like the film, but it's more of a scape than a phrased composition. This can often mean the dance/music relationship is unrelated. This approach has an expiration period for my interest. That said Hart's movement language is well balanced through the lower and upper body, includes detailed finger work and valuable floorwork. I also very much enjoyed the two moments of phrased unison performed by two of the dancers.

Elsewhere we see platform footwear, long, spiky hand appendages and futuristic headgear all adding to the bizarre, randomness of proceedings. During the performance I was often reminded of my favourite sci-fi film to date Arrival (2016), and research proved that Jóhannsson was responsible for the movie's soundtrack. Small world. Sadly Jóhannsson died in 2018 aged 48, and knowing this makes the work's vast, doom-ridden emptiness even more sad.

Last And First Men showed at The Coronet Theatre 26–28 February

Main Image credit: Camille Blake