You could say that the essence of Paragon's new collaborative commission is to make the invisible not just visible, but thrilling to the eye and ear.
For Torque takes its creative energy from the technology and the elemental forces behind wind turbines and, in its earliest stages, brought scientists and engineers into the process alongside composer Pippa Murphy and choreographer Caroline Bowditch.
This is a thing of quite mystical beauty in which the science translates into images of whirling momentum where bodies connect or maintain distance as if caught in currents of unseen influences (electrical, magnetic or wind-blown). Murphy's score embraces an evocative range of cadences and beats, with live electronics and found sounds melding present technologies with timelessly lyrical flutings, the sonorous sweep of cello and double-bass and a percussive heartbeat that occasionally hints at meditative Indian rhythm-schemes.
Bowditch's choreography responded to these patterns and juxtapositions with rich textures of its own. The opening moments really catch the feel of unharnessed winds in an open landscape, the dancers' billowing coats filling like sails and their bodies translating the buffeting into the promise of windmills and energy transference.
Even when the pressure to generate more electricity manifests in the regulated rush of running forms, Torque still communicates a sense of wonderment at the natural world and how science has engineered it to meet our greedy demands for heat, light and computer games. I watched the work at a run-through; the premiere is at 7pm at Platform tonight and tomorrow.
HHHH
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