Tom Dale Company: I infinite at The Place

Tom Dale Company, I infinite, The Place, October 17

Barret Hodgson’s digital lighting effects in I infinite (photo: Barret Hodgson)

Although Tom Dale’s I infinite is performed on the stage at The Place, the immersive nature of its digital technology does not fit well with the model of a conventional theatre. To present it here requires the adaptation of the stage to a white box space and its public bar area to an antechamber in which we are asked to leave our bags, jackets and shoes and to don a loose grey kimono-like jacket; the traditional ritual of attending a theatre performance is subverted. Once inside the space there is no conventional seating but a limited number of white benches or low plinths, some of which, we are told, will be used by the dancer, Jemima Brown. Monitors are present to direct the audience flow when needed. There is no front, no fixed perspective from which to view the performance so those who don’t have a seat are encouraged to wander around the space, stand still, sit, crouch or lie down; leaning against the stretched fabric walls is not advised. Once the performance is under way, however, all the preparations make sense; the exquisite atmosphere video artist Barret Hodgson creates with light and projections around Brown can only work with these kinds of parameters. Dale and Hodgson seem to be spearheading a form of theatrical environment that requires something more like a gallery space to house it where audiences will be accustomed to the all-consuming aesthetic such an immersive experience demands. Until then, touring something like I infinite in conventional theatres will always appear to be the future adapting itself to an antediluvian present.

Dale and Hodgson have been involved in this kind of work for some time. Five years ago I saw Refugees of the Septic Heart that Dale choreographed and for which Hodgson designed the projections alongside a lighting designer, a set designer, six dancers, music and text. The complex overlapping of creative inputs proved less cumulative than distracting, but it might have been the effect of experimenting with digital technology in a conventional theatre setting. With I infinite the digital inputs have been set free of the proscenium stage and the performative elements have been reduced to the essentials of light, sound and movement.

Dales’s extended choreographic solo for Brown gives the performance the texture of a dance work but its true subject is the relationship between movement and digital technology, not as equal constituent elements but as a demonstration of the latter’s ‘efforts to perfect itself as it constantly tries to re-create or reproduce nature.’ Brown’s role thus appears subservient to the digital evocation of light and space in setting up a neat and vital distinction between the finite digital technology and infinite human expression. Paradoxically inside the white box space the visual effect of the digital light patterns, especially in conjunction with haze, conveys an uncanny sense of infinity whereas Brown’s body suggests a finite landscape within it. At one point she disappears below the horizontal plane of light/haze and we are looking out on the universe from the top of a mountain. Even if the audience all around is implicated figuratively in the action, Brown’s smooth and articulate dynamic is indispensable as a contrasting focus of our attention, but as a display of possibilities it is Hodgson’s digital sleight of hand that makes I infinite memorable. Dale and Hodgson have evolved their creative venture as a vivid demonstration of the possibilities such a carefully controlled scenographic environment can offer, but in terms of a theatrical experience there is still some progress to be made on a choreographic vision to match it.