Move pushes boundaries

If you think Marcel Duchamp’s ready-mades put a bomb under easel art, it was nothing compared with the fuss when experimental artists and choreographers asked similar questions about dance. Vaslav Nijinsky caused a famous theatre punch-up when, in The Rite of Spring (1913), his dancers didn’t point their toes. Many are still reeling from Trisha Brown choreographing a man walking down the side of a building (1970).

And when artists began making static dance, speaking dance and dance not as the movement of bodies but the control of ideas, most waved it away as a fad.

Our resistance to choreography anywhere other than the theatre, by anyone other than professionals, and as anything other than motion-theatre watched by static observers, is a theme of the Hayward show. Its means are predominantly immersive, interactive installations which make it almost impossible to stand still. Most require you to take part with your whole body, a prospect many will find toe curling.

Chunks of the often larky show work best for youngsters but with heavyweights such as Isaac Julien and William Forsythe involved, it also asks grown-up questions about choreography as both paid-for performance and the movement of people through time and space. Some of the material is less strong and there are glaring omissions, although the recreation of Seventies pieces are worth revisiting, especially those by Trisha Brown, while more recent work, such as Julien’s Ten Thousand Waves (2010) about the Morecambe Bay cockle pickers, conveys sharply poignant ideas with unsettling immersive techniques.

My favourite is La Ribot’s jokey Walk the Chair, a "randomly roving installation" where you pick up one of 50 chairs and make it your personal, portable auditorium. Despite our experiments with art and performance, we still want the weight off our feet.

Until January 9, 0844 847 9910, southbankcentre.co.uk/move

Move: Choreographing You
Hayward Gallery
SE1