Review: DARK WITH EXCESSIVE BRIGHT, Royal Opera House

Appearing as part of their Festival of New Choreography, the Royal Ballet have partnered with the National Ballet of Canada for Dark With Excessive Bright, an extraordinarily intimate experiment which allows audience to experience the art form in a radical way.

NBC’s Robert Binet is no stranger to the Royal Ballet having been its first ever Choreographic Apprentice under Wayne McGregor; he returned in 2016 to create Void And Fire to celebrate McGregor’s 10th anniversary with the company.

Binet is one of the most innovative choreographers of his generation, unafraid to tweak the art form’s nose in order to push standard works in new directions, dream up new paradigms or play with audience expectations: in 2019’s Orpheus Alive, he switched the gender roles around (a male Eurydice is transported to Hades after falling under a train) and used the surtitles for darkly comic effects. 

This latest work is a sequel or sorts to Binet’s first immersive The Dreamers Ever Leave You from 2016. Revived in 2021 as a performance film, it shares a common structure with this piece: around a dozen dancers perform on three small platforms over 45-minute long loops while audience members watch from mere inches away. Lit by sombre and almost macabre lighting, not all platforms are in use throughout and the action comes to us in short, intense bursts of around five minutes. Taisuke Nakao and Nicol Edmonds are a thrilling pairing whose energy rises up a notch when joined later by Anna Rose O'Sullivan while Joseph Sissen’s finale routine is a solo sensation which beautifully pulls us in.

Dancers dressed in Thomas Tait’s skintight and skin-coloured costumes enlivened with a shoulder-mounted blaze of chiffon approach the platforms from the sides of the room or by stepping from one to another across walkways; in the latter case, the audience parts with deference to allow them through. The ability to inspect these expert dancers at such a close distance is a fascinating prospect: as they stretch for the sky on their toes or lift their partners around in graceful arcs, the dancers’ greatest feats and smallest mistakes are there for maximum scrutiny. 

Shizuka Hariu’s intensely dark set has three barely raised platforms separated by open corridors.  Audiences are invited to stand around and walk between these islands or watch from the balcony above with movement permitted up, down and around the floor space throughout. Overhead, a digital clock with blazing red digits counts down the time remaining before the show ends. Hanging from the floor to the theatre ceiling, 8m-long steel diagonal cables surround each platform to symbolise the interplay of darkness and brightness in the performance.

Unlike Cabaret and Guys & Dolls which deploy what could be optimistically be called immersive design, the theatrical immersion here is a deeper three-sixty affair which envelopes those on the ground. A masterstroke from Binet is to have different choreography performed simultaneously to Missy Mazoli’s music. By standing between the platforms, it is possible to hear a laidback musical segment and watch a soloist slowly reaching up and around to find new expressions then turn to see a trio languidly exploring their own space with graceful teamwork on the adjacent platform. 

Like Punchdrunk’s The Burnt City and Sleepwalk’s Bacchanalia, this wordless show has much to say in terms of how physicality in its purest sense can result in a deeply engaging conversation between audience and performer and also provide golden moments of very human interaction. There’s an undeniable sensuality in being so close to honed bodies covered in such slight outfits. For those standing in the walkways, the corps will inevitably pass past you at some point; as they recover from one sequence and prepare for the next, you can hear their recovering breaths and perhaps see small beads of sweat on their faces. 

Even in the smallest of venues or at the front of the stalls, it is unlikely that such proximity to talent of this quality (including some of the Royal Ballet’s Principal Dancers and First Soloists) is ever available. Dark With Excessive Bright offers a rare opportunity to find new connections with and inspiration from this classic art form. 

Dark With Excessive Bright continues until 20 February

Photo credit: Andrej Uspenski

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