Words by Georgia Howlett.
Straight off the rainy streets of London, I arrive flustered at The Place. The ambience of HOMECOMING’s immersive installation is immediately serene, and therefore welcome.
HOMECOMING is a mixed reality performance and interactive experience by choreographer Georgia Tegou and visual artist Kristina Pulejkova. Tegou’s production company and creative hub, Dance-as-design Studio, explores approaches to dance that blend design, architecture and visual arts with movement, hence the collaboration with Pulejkova, and interdisciplinary composter, Vincent Cavanagh.
Once warned of potential VR dizziness and ushered into the installation, we are invited to move around the space. Nobody does. Projections fill the front and back walls, sombre, monochrome landscapes that distort and morph so slowly I doubt my vision. As delicate as the sheer fabric that hangs before us, a voice reassures us: “Don’t be afraid, child.” Of what, we don’t know. A white, wispy flame, ethereally simple, dances across the fabric as the voice continues.
The atmosphere conjured here is soon invaded by the inevitably clunky VR preparation. Our task? To unlock the story of Lena Arbori’s ghost through the movements of our hands, which by this point, feel oddly estranged from the body. The narrative that follows, 5 scenes danced by a cast of 6, is also replicated on stage. Homecoming is the telling of the same story, via two different mediums.
The VR features a hand gesture recognition system, and therefore combines passive viewing with simple interaction. A world of purply sand dunes, floating orbs and glistening crystals are the abstracted habitat of Lena’s memories. Forced to abandon my frozen seated position – adopted out of fear of accidentally pressing the wrong button – I twist almost 360 so not to lose the dancers as they dart out of my vision as if around a corner.
Our protagonist, Lena, played by Synne Lundesgaard, suffers a series of major heartbreaks: love that betrays, leaves, and love that can never quite be. In staging several universal experiences, HOMECOMING could resonate with almost anyone. After all, who hasn’t had their heart broken, in some way, at some point?
In a post-show talk, Tegou describes Lena as a fiery, fearless, female artist, inspired by Louise Bourgeois and Pina Bausch. We sense only a sliver of this Lena in HOMECOMING, for she becomes contained by her domestic daily life. Lena’s story could in fact be any story, the scenes of her life are simply catalysts to a loss of self and exist to serve the piece in grounding its complex concepts in human narratives. Questions of whether entropy can be reversed, a body brought back from the dead as attempted in the myth of Euridyce, are quietly at work in HOMECOMING. The result is fluid choreography, striking visuals, and a slow burn, melancholic soundtrack that suspends the work in a sense of limbo. HOMECOMING is more accessible than its underlying concepts suggest, it’s a piece that could be unpacked but doesn’t demand it of you.
What may have been ambiguous on stage is made clear having seen the VR first. Though movement on stage can speak volumes in emotion, details of a story can remain elusive without the solidity of language. That said, the characters in Lena’s life are made distinct enough through gesture and expression; the swish of a hip beside a lover, the kiss on the head of a son, all in front of projected backgrounds that set the scenes. Described as a work of dance theatre, HOMECOMING’s narrative unfolds placidly at times. Even when the stakes feel high, when projected flames lick the back wall and Lena is consumed by the underworld, the work feels more tender than it does dramatic.
The telling of one tale in two ways makes comparison inevitable. In both versions, towards the end, Lundesgaard spins in such a way to suggest eternality, her soul coming home, the reversal of an entity. On stage, boxed in by three walls and with our distance, the effect is less profound than in the installation, where her hologram drifts beautifully across the screens, at times leaving half of her body on one screen only to unite again on the other; she spirals endlessly to the backdrop of a twinkling forest.
Other moments, however, are enhanced and indeed reliant on our distance, and the proscenium set up. ‘Dance-as-design’ is known for its visual mastery, even subtle stage illusions, that elevate abstract choreography. HOMECOMING, the stage show, takes advantage of our distance from the performers, for example, with an exquisite tunnel of layered fog and light, at the end of which lies the forest, a soothing metaphor of the place in which Lena can finally return home.
Kimberley Harvey is the guardian angel and guiding voice. She is part of Lena, hence why Lena cannot ignore her presence when it comes smoothly between every scene. An oracle in white, Harvey urges Lena to listen by rippling her arms, articulating her fingers and pressing down the air around her. With her back often turned to us, Harvey is quietly wise, an embodiment of the soothing white flame that introduces us to the installation.
Tegou’s choreography is fluid and grounded throughout, with more refined gestures to reflect domestic scenes. At its loftiest moment, father and son collide and contemporary dance is used at its best with rapid spins, near misses, and swift floorwork, yet the movement retains a composed, even polished aesthetic. HOMECOMING takes visual inspiration from Louise Bourgeois’s Femme Maison, and Caravaggio’s chiaroscuro technique, influences that are evident in the fierce yet understated composition of the stage, using costume, backdrop and positioning of dancers.
Lundesgaard is precise and unforced in every movement. Swept along by the happenings of her life, it is not until later on that she appears to turn inwards. A delicate solo sees her gently explore; memories play out in her body through a whisper of a shape seen earlier in the show. The cast soon come together in a flurry of motion, complex pathways drawn with ease between and around each other. All are united by their vested interest in Lena.
Emerging from a digital experiment, this mixed reality piece asks the questions of how best to show the sensations of feeling out of your body. When in VR, one is already disembodied, a curious state from which to experience dance, especially considering the kinaesthetic effects at play when we as an audience, in our own bodies, watch live movement. In retrospect, the coinciding of Lena’s return to her body with the audience exiting the VR and watching the final part of the installation, back in our bodies, feels crucial. HOMECOMING encourages reflection on the state we are in when we experience dance, and in offering two experiences, one interactive, the other passive, also raises the agency we possess while doing so.
Tegou and Puljekova discuss the fine line they toed in their decisions around technology to ensure its use was meaningful rather than performative. This is a relief, for it confirms the integrity of the piece and its makers at a time of growing debate around technology’s threat to art. Technology, here, does feel relevant, for how better to experience Lena’s own estrangement of her soul from her body when,the connection to our own limbs is muted, weightless and somewhat unreal.
What happens when your world falls apart? HOMECOMING pursues an answer. How curious that I feel most connected with those who embody that answer when in VR, when disconnected from the self, as if this is the precedent of the immersive state. I leave the Place and it is still raining. The city rush has not ceased, but I’m certain Lena is still spinning in her forest, home to herself at last.
Creative team:
Concept, Direction, Choreography, Visual Design: Georgia Tegou & Kristina Pulejkova
Music Composition and Sound Design: Vincent Cavanagh / The Radicant
Costume Designer: Justin Smith / JSmith Esquire
Lead Creative Coders – Visual Artists: Uncharted Limbo Collective
Lighting Designer: Jackie Shemesh
Associate Lighting Designer: Joe Hornsby
Performers: Xan Dye, Arran Green, Kimberly Harvey, Synne Lundesgaard, Akshay Sharma, Anna Smith
Production Manager: Michael Picknett
Rehearsal Director: Artemis Stamouli
Performance Coach & Rehearsal Director: Sarah Walton
Holograms and trailers Videography: Jackie Read
Creative Producer: Linda P?terkopa
Producing Consultant: Lia Prentaki
Assistant Creative Producer: Marita Anastasi