The first act takes some time to get moving, as movements depicting communal gatherings, curiosity and discovery are worked through. However, once the piece’s play with different screens of various angles and shapes starts to take off, “Lunar Halo” finds its footing. Particularly striking is the appearance of one long thin screen, that features a video of a still naked man gazing down at the shuffling dancers. He looks out somewhat benignly but is also removed from their struggles below. It’s a striking, totally theatrical experience where concepts of wonderment and awesome scale are made literal through innovative staging. The filmed dancer is then, in stop-motion fashion, covered in paint, and becomes statue like. I am struck by the passage of time; of how things that might have once been encountered or told as meaningful stories, are then carved into stone, to eventually fade out of relevance.
From here, what is represented on the screens starts to distort and fragment; profiles slide into view, disconcertingly long thighs drop from above. At one point, a reaching hand coming down from the ceiling turns into a pressing fist. Cave like drawings are sketched; flashes of intense green appear. Are those traffic sounds we hear? The dancers continue amongst the digital imagery with athletic determination, their tasseled costumes and long hair streaming behind them. While they physically connect with each other through seamless lifts and circling partnering, there’s a disjoint in the joints that adds a nice messiness to their actions. The grandiose (but not pompous) soundtrack from Sigur Rós is completely enmeshed in the world, complementing the visuals with open, glacial like reverberations to intense drumming and haunting vocals.
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