Tentacle Tribe, PRISM Sadler's Wells East - Review

"Easy to fool the eye, then, but is it equally easy to keep it alert and interested? That's what I asked myself as I sat in a sadly half-empty Sadler's Wells East, fighting a wave of somnolence partly induced by Elon Höglund's music, a monotonous, repetitive combination of muffled beats and gurgling. Much of what was happening before my eyes, if not exactly breakin' or street dance as we know it, was ingenious enough:"

"Benoit Larivière's lighting was subdued, the mirrors' surface matte, the action in slow motion. Arms undulated before coming together briefly to form a chain, which then split into multiple chains through reflection. As the 60-minute show progressed, the mirrored panels were shifted to create new configurations and ways of reflecting and reshaping light, sometimes resulting in painterly tableaux. The idea, and the show's title, come from the nature of light."

"A prism, as we know, refracts light, splitting it into its seven component colours - five of which were represented in the performers' loose pjs. Starting from that point, the show asks, what lies beyond what we can see? It's an interesting question, one that the show explores through its transformative environment, marking a new phase in the company's experimentation with movement."

Prism employs strategically placed mirrors to compose, recompose and distort visual reality, creating ambiguity between real and reflected forms. Five performers in block colours move in slow motion within an angled mirrored space, forming chains and mirrored multiples. Benoit Larivière's subdued lighting and matte mirror surfaces produce painterly tableaux as panels shift to reshape light over the 60-minute performance. Elon Höglund provides a repetitive, muffled-beat and gurgling score that some find soporific. The show premiered in London as a Breakin' Convention guest and signals a new phase of experimentation for Montreal's Tentacle Tribe, founded in 2012 by Emmanuelle Lê Phan and Elon Höglund.

Read at London Unattached