Low Down
Visually arresting and physically stunning, blackSKYwhite’s brand of physical theatre has no story and no plot. Instead a series of other worldly figures and images assaults your senses in a dream-like display that is quite literally out of this world.
Review
This piece sits perfectly in its after midnight slot, occupying the space between the clarity of the waking hours and that strange shape-shifting time before sleep.
Bizarre and utterly compelling, this is a piece that explores the fears and dreams which confine and define us - that power of imagination which can both hold us back or allow us to rise above ourselves.
Astronomy for Insects channels deep into the cracks in our psyche. The unearthly creatures that inhabit the other parallel world that is blackSKYwhite are sometimes anchored to the ground by crutches or wheelchairs and at other times seem to float above the ground.
Performing the seemingly physically impossible, arms appear longer than humanly possible; limbs twist to unlikely angles; a clown hovers above the ground as he leaves the stage. Insects unfurl themselves from chrysalises and sprout wings. A figure in a wheelchair is given crutches but prefers to stay in her wheelchair and flap the crutches like wings.
An oddly deformed Santa Claus conducts a distorted transaction with a childlike figure. Tubes of coloured light pulsate to a perfectly synchronised sound track that ranges from throbbing club beat to Berlin cabaret.
Directed and designed with absolute precision and performed with the utmost theatrical skills, blackSKYwhite lays siege to the borders between your inner and outer worlds. A solitary white-faced figure in a wheelchair is left on the stage, watching us as we ascend the stairs back out into the world. It is hard to turn our backs and leave this spell-bound world behind
Reviewed by Clare Simpson 10/08/07
