Against a rising tide of fake news and conspiracy theories, choreographer Rosie Kay and film-maker Adam Curtis have found a timely subject for their new collaboration, MK Ultra. Splicing together documentary footage and a pumped-up stream of dance and music, this two-hour work tells the story of how a generation of under-25s have come to believe in the Illuminati, a shadowy cult they say is attempting world domination through mass brainwashing.
According to popular myth, the cult operates by grooming targeted individuals to become celebrities, using pop stars such as Britney Spears to disseminate the cult’s agenda through the content of their songs and videos. MK Ultra is an exceptionally stylish production. Illuminati imagery percolates through every aspect of its design, from the pyramid-shaped film screen to the arcane symbols that decorate the seven dancers’ costumes.
Curtis’s documentary uses a characteristically sophisticated blend of contemporary interview and archive footage to narrate the rise of the Illuminati myth, while Kay’s choreography portrays a group of dancers who have apparently been signed up to the Illuminati programme, drilling themselves for stardom through a relentlessly competitive (and cleverly parodic) regime of twerking, urban, sexy moves.
There are the beginnings of an emotional subtext here, as Kay portrays vivid moments of slippage between the dancers’ individual personalities and the automated efficiency of their stage personas. Lizzie Klotz hints at a vulnerable girl, artlessly practising her celebrity smile and her faux foxy strut: Shelley Eva Haden is the most obvious and charismatic candidate for success, but there are times when even her character’s self-belief falters and her body stalls into a dysfunctional shudder.
Frustratingly, these hints of an interior life are undeveloped, and the work remains dominated by Curtis’s film. Clearly, the myth of the Illuminati was an important starting point for Kay, but while her choreography seems to strive towards a more humanly imagined dimension, the film sequences keep pulling her back into the realm of documentary fact.
• At Eden Court, Inverness, 25 April. Box office: 01463 234234. Then touring until 18 May.
