A black stretch limo is parked beside the Thames. Blank-faced characters, dressed as if walking home from the night before, repeatedly spray-paint slogans on the pavement (“Tomorrow is cancelled”) before they’re wiped away. A film of a staged riot gives La Haine vibes. Political impotence cast through a bleak filter – that’s the intro to a takeover of the whole Southbank Centre by French dance collective (La)Horde. It puts films and live performances by a cast of 80 (with dancers from Ballet National de Marseille and Rambert) all over the complex’s buildings for a buzzing three hours.
That’s as overtly political as it gets, though, because in (La)Horde’s world, everyone is too distracted by screens to engage, including a guy who walks around with a rig holding 40 phones, like a tourist with an elaborate selfie stick. In one piece called Deep Stream, the dancers, like avatars, go through the human motions, but it’s all fake laughter and glazed gazes. Across a lot of these performances, the mood is of eerie disconnect, joyless sex, aloofness, sadness. Is anyone happy in (La)Horde’s world? It’s a troubling depiction of gen Z. (The finale, though, offers a blast of primal energy that’s a thrilling tonic.)
(La)Horde excel at reframing or repurposing street and social dance, as in guest choreographers Cecilia Bengolea and François Chaignaud’s Grime Ballet, where dirty bass is unexpectedly paired with the clean pink satin of pointe shoes. Or the techno lindy hop of Hop(e)storm, swing dancing to a strict beat. They strip a dance of one context and give it another in a way that’s simple and readable but also strange and compelling. In To Da Bone, they bring together “jumpstyle” dancers, bedroom amateurs from around Europe who dance like they’re doing football tricks with an invisible ball. It’s very specific, very technical, and treated with the seriousness of a ballet petit allegro. It also reminds you of step dances from Ireland, South Africa and Chicago and the way such ideas were spread or developed long before digital memes.
The evening’s format, of short pieces you dip in and out of, echoes online life. All the artists need to offer is a tasty bite, a novelty, a sensation, and you can walk away before anything gets too demanding or boring. That’s shallow, you could say, but it’s also exciting, and the event embodies the questions it’s asking in a way that’s genuinely meaningful.
• At Southbank Centre, London, until 6 September
