The Stage

Babel

Published Friday 22 January 2010 at 14:25 by Sarah Wilkinson

Babel, the latest devised piece from Stan Won’t Dance, demands our attention and deserves it. In a seamlessly integrated language of dance and text, the production tears apart British society in all its political correctness, probing terrorism, capitalisation, commercialism, and knife crime with intelligent and insatiable intensity.

Against the backdrop of Gareth Fry’s arresting music design, Patrick Neate’s text veers between epic poem and angry, frustrated rap. In one particularly clever sequence, the ensemble take it in turns to dissect the infiltration of advertising and branding into our vocabulary, pitching brilliant parodies of political and religious rhetoric.

In between their verbal dissections, they traverse the set with pulsing bodies, jabbing the air in meticulous synchronicity and revelling in the humour their movements add to otherwise serious subjects. Liam Steel’s set - comprised predominantly of two upturned cars and a gauze screen, upon which digital text is projected - is exploited to stunningly varied effect, with one car masquerading convincingly as both a bomb shelter and a drive-through McDonalds with little more than a shift of lighting and some committed interaction from the performers.

Babel is an explosive triumph of dance theatre that leaves the audience reeling with the uncomfortable truths of modern Britain. If news reports could be delivered in this style, then perhaps we would all sit up, take notice, and for once feel compelled to engage.