Entity

Getting near the end of the festival now... one month to go. Tonight was the last of our events at The Egg, and the last dance event in Beijing : Random Dance Company. They did Entity - an hour long piece without a break. Great use of projection from three sides and from above, and excellent, powerful music by Joby Talbot and Jon Hopkins. 
As ever, the music is vital. If I don't like the music, I probably won't like the show. Talbot and Hopkins are both classically trained composers but have both branched out to embrace contemporary & electronic production. (And both were born in Wimbledon, funnily enough). Talbot has worked with the Divine Comedy, wrote the music for TV's The League of Gentlemen (which, incidentally - and this is difficult to believe - I've never seen), scored a couple of films (including Son of Rambow - see post), and lots of other stuff. Hopkins has worked with Imogen Heap and King Creosote (both of whom we recently brought to China), Eno and Coldplay, and has also scored films, including Monsters.  
But back to Entity... which was abstract, hard, techy, almost scientific - and quite demanding of the audience (which was a sell-out by the way), but involving & emotional enough to work on many levels. Good on-stage after-show talk with the dancers, continually stretching their limbs and adjusting posture so as not to seize up, and confirming they were indeed regular human beings.