Grass, flowers, sun, moon, stars, rocks, trees, leaves, blossom, love, friendship, understanding ... All this and more feature in the new show from illusionist-cum-trick-choreographer Moses Pendleton, who's back for an extra-long stint at the Peacock a year after his successful run of Opus Cactus.
That was inspired by the cactus and lizard life of Arizona, and came with good visual effects and New Age eco-drivel by the truckload.
Lunar Sea draws on ideas of the moon and stars, planets, galaxies, and so forth, plus it pulls out all the stops on visual gee-wizzery.
Indeed, it's not so much choreography as trickography, with an inked-out stage, buckets of UV lighting, black and white costumes, and wire-flying, which give the effect of disembodied limbs floating in space, human levitation, swimming, flying, longing, loving, and such like.
Pendleton is a veteran event meister, a dazzling old hand at Olympic ceremonies and effect fests. He has a nimble eye and a hippy's heart, and the two produce striking effects. A favourite is when the dancers, dressed all in black except for white arms, waft their hands like birds in flight. Another is when they appear to be jellyfish then calligraphic forms.
After the interval, Pendleton reveals a debt to the great dance director Busby Berkeley. There are repeats and patterning, plus unison motion, and bathing belles with yellow cossies, tasselled swimming caps and bouncy balls that they work over in a rather saucy fashion. There's also what looks like a buglike-creature. Butwhen the lighting changes it becomes two dancers, a woman perched on the shoulders of a man, with her hair hanging loose.
All the while a front gauze shades the stage, giving the 10 dancers a ghostie-wobbles effect. Onto it are projected all sorts of New-Agey pictures (flowers, rocks, waves etc). The music is a plinky-plonky Zen medley of whales, waves, and wailing, plus big drum rolls and the self-empowering rants ("The energy inside you", blah, blah, blah). Luna Sea is a visual treat for eight-year-olds and unintentionally hilarious for everyone else.
Until 25 Nov (0870 737 7737).
Momix: Lunar Sea
Peacock Theatre
Portugal Street, WC2A 2HT
