Giant Parade – masses of dancers, masses of fun in an amazing show! | platform

MDonkey movement can have a volatile effect. Whether in military parades or the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games, Busby Berkeley routines or a ballet corps, a large number of bodies harmonized together in precise formation equals the spontaneous hype factor.

Australian choreographer Stephanie Lake knows this, and her piece Colossus, originally produced in 2018, has been performed around the world. Clips of it went viral on the Internet. And now it’s making its UK debut with a cast of 60 students from the London School of Contemporary Dance – enough of them to fill the Queen Elizabeth Hall stage.

The physical strength of many of the dancers is impressive. When they’re all running at once, if you’re close enough to the stage, you’ll feel the air rushing in as if they were the blades of a giant fan. Seeing those bodies transform into a structure larger than themselves, or tracking the small movements running through the set, timed to the millisecond like a glorious Mexican wave, is instantly satisfying.

But this is more than just contemporary Rocket Dance. Over the course of the 50-minute show, Lake looks at all the different things a mass of bodies can mean. A quarrel, a mob, a team or crowd, a flock of people being dictated to by a domineering leader, a gang pursuing their victim. There is a constant question about where power lies (the answer changes all the time), punctuated by dancers moving beautifully as one. Objects placed in a circle, for example, pulsate like the diaphragm of a loudspeaker.

Well-trained dancers are at the ready. It’s a real logistical feat with so many parties having to get to the right place at the right moment, and the complex arrangement of, say, six factions all dancing to their own synchronized beats at the same time. Lake meticulously investigates the possibilities, with surprises all around. You’ll inevitably compare it to other choreographers who work with bodies collectively, like Crystal Pite: Colossus doesn’t have the richness of language, emotion, or dramatic arc that Pite manages, but it’s a watchable, readable, enjoyable, and admirably performed piece.