Review by Kate Gaul
Seed Company’s “Lost Connection” is part of the Taiwan Season at Edinburgh Fringe. It is another example of the brilliant and inspired work in the season that encompasses mainly physical work. This is a European premiere. We are warned in the blurb that in “Lost Connection” the content surrounding connection to digital phones and devices creates a self-absorbed, pressure-cooked state of being which could be both exciting and distressing. Four dancers over forty minutes explore the connection we have to our phones. Phone -like devices are clutched in the dancers’ hands – they are extensions of humanity. It is hypnotic and beautiful. Choreographer Wen-Jen Huang begins the work with dancers lit only by their phones. It is clever and poetic. This is the phenomenon of phubbing – paying more attention to your mobile than the people around you. The quartet of dancer’s hunch over their phone, are led by it, drained by it, excited by it. Often, they are zombie-like and the shadowy lighting emphasises this quality of the connection.
They fight to get closer to a device. Once the phone is discarded the dancers retain the shape in their hands. The costuming is in dark greys and greens, hair is coloured purple and blue – a lot like the light coming off the devices. The dancers wear incredibly stretchy tops, and it is with these garments that they partner. Often obscuring heads and faces they climb all around each other. It is invasive and spooky – reminding us of the anonymity of the internet, and in particular social media. There is something strangely forbidden, dangerous about the power in our hands.
The soundtrack gives nothing away – we cannot penetrate these individual’s thoughts or inner lives. The imagery shows us lost opportunities for human connection as the dancers deftly weave in and around each other. It is hypnotic. And I guess that’s the feeling we get from the digital device. “Lost Connection” is superb dance, and its content and message are salutary. It is well documented that digital devices increase isolation and loneliness and yet as the houselights rise at the end of the show the audience grabs for their phones and are led out face down into the day.
Image Supplied
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