Dancer and choreographer Maria Caruso’s latest solo show, Counterpoint of Chaos, takes the very current topic of AI and situates it within the context of control, choice, relevance, body image, and efficiency.
We see Caruso as an office worker arriving at an old-fashioned desk flanked by paperwork and including a rotary phone. Finding material in boxes seems chaotic and stressful. Those of us around pre-computers will certainly relate.
With her hair in a bun, a cardigan, and a flouncy skirt, our heroine is staccato, tense, dull, and dour. This changes when a package arrives promising change with a smartphone and a laptop.
Questions are answered quickly, suggestions are made, information is filed. Caruso’s image changes with her clothes, a freer silhouette, and a more defined figure. A red two-piece of jacket and pencil skirt with an animal print top changes the routine.
This style of dance is deeply interpretive and strongly styled. It is about expression, freedom, and openness. By the time a routine becomes an animalistic picture of rage and ripped tights, strips held like prison bars, the implication is the balance between human and machine is seriously out of balance.
To assess a piece of work so closely integrated with personal creativity is challenging – although unlike Caruso’s previous show, Incarnation, this project steps back from her own direct experience.
Counterpoint of Chaos occupies an unsettling middle ground between the 80s (pre-internet) and the tech-heavy 21st century. Caruso’s choice of movement also suggests this, with influences from modern classical and contemporary pop dance.
AI and technology become an obsessive force in Counterpoint of Chaos. We see it on our streets, with people’s eyes always on their screens. We see it in our vernacular in terms like ‘googling’, ‘tweeting’, and ‘the algorithm’.
In the character embodied by Caruso, fashion is the focus. A focus to get all eyes on one person. An Instagramable moment, a stolen selfie. A carefully curated image. Music composed by Ryan Onestak accompanies the vision – urgent, discordant, loud, pulsing.
Counterpoint of Chaos is another intriguing instalment in Maria Caruso’s career. It focuses on the importance of live performance and the way we, as human creators, need to keep control of the technology that can enhance or harm it.
When a dance sequence is reduced to a data set, it becomes routine. As Caruso’s movements move from the regimented to the wild and intense, a resolution is achieved that places technology in its proper place. As assistant, guide, and contributor.
3.5 stars.
You can read my interview with Maria Caruso.
Counterpoint of Chaos was at His Majesty’s Theatre on 31 May.
Photo credit: Jay Kuntz