HALF | LIFE
H A L F | L I F E
World Premiere 2022 / Q Theatre, Auckland
Lo | Co Arts
Tempo Dance Festival
Choreographer: Loughlan Prior
Composers: Claire Cowan & Tom Dennison
Dramaturge: The Friday Company
LX & Scenic Design: Filament Eleven11
Costume: Coralie Hale
Performers: Laura Saxon Jones
Kirby Selchow
Kit Reilly
Tabitha Dombroski
Björn Åslund
Photography: Celia Walmsley
Film: Jeremy Brick
Animation: Glynn Urquhart
Run Time: 60mins
Program Notes:
As human life recedes further and further into a virtual space, corporeal existence is slowly left behind. The frontier of physical and psychological
extremes is crossed as the spiritual and the digital intertwine.
Enter a world of speculative fiction, blurring the realities of physical and metaphysical realms. On the threshold of irreversibly entangling every personal nuance, every bodily experience with the Eternal Virtual, we trade holistic control for curated minutiae and voyeuristic crumbs. Shut down the somatic. Construct upgraded reality. Engage pixels to drown out the distant alarm bells menacing humanity from a few moments into the future. Upload the present. Upgrade the afterlife. Run the human race. Everything can be yours.
Half | Life is an intriguing multidisciplinary full-length work by Lo|Co Arts - an
ensemble of acclaimed mixed-genre artists working to create engaging contemporary experiences. Directed and choreographed by Loughlan Prior and
composed by Claire Cowan and Tom Dennison, the performance explores the vertical integration of digital space with live performance below.
Featuring an outstanding company of dance artists (Laura Saxon Jones, Kirby
Selchow, Kit Reilly, Tabitha Dombroski and Björn Åslund) this production is a contemporary meditation on self-expression, the effects of an altered subconscious and the governance of
subliminal control.
The outstanding group of dancers who are onstage throughout, perform Prior’s unique vocabulary of seamless contemporary ballet with a commitment that is a joy to watch, imbuing every movement with meaning. Their pliant bodies bend and form into exquisite shapes which are held briefly before breaking down and regrouping into other elegant formations. - Jenny Stevenson, Theatre Review
Dancers extend, reach, and hover, just about to touch, and then move away, folding in and out of form and shape from one moment to the next. We get a sense of the loss of intimacy and emotional resonance as humanity engages and submits to a cyber world and ascends into a suspended and altered reality.
- Geordan Wilcox, DANZ
