Dance at the end of the world: Q&A with Adrienne Hart

Neon Dance presents a contemporary dance work set to the backdrop of Johann Jóhannsson‘s 16mm black and white film, with specially recorded narration from Tilda Swinton and a mesmerising orchestral score composed by Jóhannsson and Yair Elazar Gotman. Last and First Men takes Olaf Stapledon’s visionary 1930 sci-fi novel and transforms it into a deeply moving exploration of humanity’s dystopian future. The film’s vast, surreal imagery becomes a stage for movement. We spoke to choreographer Adrienne Hart.

How would you describe Last and First Men to an audience not familiar with the film?

Last and First Men is a haunting and powerful journey across time, memory, and mutation, merging film, dance, set and sound into a bold, otherworldly vision of the future. Set against the backdrop of Johann Jóhannsson’s film and inspired by Olaf Stapledon’s visionary novel, the performance challenges the very concept of human identity and explores the potential evolution of the human form, questioning how far we can push the boundaries before humanity becomes something unrecognisable. 

How does imagining such a distant humanity help us reflect on who we are today?

We rarely have time and space to reflect on where we are going, why we make the choices we make and to zoom out and consider our place within the vastness of it all! Science Fiction has this fascinating ability to blend together speculative wonder with timeless human narratives and that's what I believe makes it so compelling. In Last and First Men, the last humans yearn to communicate with the first and achieve this through something akin to meditation, travelling into the minds of past humans and influencing their decisions! Wild as it sounds, I love the idea that however far we progress, this need for human connection remains. 

The dancers wear sculptural costumes that extend and transform the body. Did those pieces inspire the choreography, or did the movement shape the design?

We started with what we refer to as 'body-extensions' created by the visual artist and research scientist Ana Rajcevic. I've worked with Ana for over 10 years now and her practice is all about the future body so she was the perfect collaborator for this project. By physically distorting, extending and changing the dancer's bodies with the use of these body-extensions, we get to reimagine how the body connects to space, other bodies, and surfaces, exploring dynamic, non-human ways of anchoring, expanding, and interacting with the environment. The dancers also wear these amazing 'bubble' shoes by the Japanese designer Mikio Sakabe, which again distorts the dancers natural shape (elongating the legs), they're also super heavy, which results in a slightly different way of moving and interacting on stage. 

What’s it like to work with someone’s artistic legacy in such a direct, living way?

When I first discovered Johannsson's film I remember seeing the credits come up at the end and realising I knew quite a few of the creative team involved. That really helped as I could then reach out and get a real sense of what it was like creating the work with Johannsson by surrounding myself with his inner circle of collaborators. Up until this point I had always commissioned original music and built a production from scratch but I actually really enjoyed the process of working with Last and First Men. It still felt collaborative and I genuinely felt like we could contribute something to the work that aided the audience's journey and understanding. 

You’ve said the performance offers both discomfort and solace. Can a dance be both unsettling and comforting at the same time? How do you walk that line?

I guess it's about creating a safe space to wander through your mind, to encounter dark thoughts that might be disturbing or unsettling conjured up by what you experience when you engage with the work but that there's a care taken over the order of things and how each scene concludes or leads onto the next. 

The show asks us to contemplate extinction, evolution, and what it means to be human. After living with this work for so long, has it changed your perceptions at all?

What's interesting for me is that each of the performers have given a part of their individual histories to this work. A reference to a first love here, a sick parent there... and of course these lives woven into the performance aren't static, the dancers' age and the people they embody or refer to in the work change as well as their relationship to them over time. So I find that the most interesting thing to watch; the smallest of gestures can sometimes carry the most meaning. 

Last and First Men is presented by Neon Dance at the Coronet Theatre 26 - 28 February: https://www.thecoronettheatre.com/whats-on/last-and-first-men/