AI makes Wayne McGregor’s dance piece Deepstaria, coming to Hong Kong, different each time
Having its Asia premiere in Hong Kong, British choreographer Wayne McGregor’s Deepstaria pushes the boundaries of technology in dance
Deepstaria sounds as if it could be a fantastical celestial body somewhere out in deep space. In fact, it is a genus of giant, shape-shifting, deep-sea jellyfish that are rarely seen by human eyes.
Deepstaria is also the title of a dance piece by British choreographer Wayne McGregor that will have its Asian premiere at Hong Kong’s Xiqu Centre, in the West Kowloon Cultural District, following its world premiere at the Montpellier Danse festival in the south of France in June.
Nine dancers from McGregor’s own dance company will perform in a pitch-dark space, inspired by the sunless world of the Deepstaria jellyfish. The space will be coated in Vantablack, a light-absorbing, super-black coating made famous by the artist Anish Kapoor that is claimed to be the “world’s darkest material”.
(The maker, Surrey NanoSystems, says Kapoor’s controversial exclusivity agreement to use a version of Vantablack for visual artworks does not cover the new sprayed-on Vantablack Vision paint that McGregor is using.)
The audience at the Xiqu Centre’s 1,000-seat Grand Theatre can expect to see the dancers illuminated, as if by an internal glow, in a manner that distorts their bodies and makes them look like soft-boned creatures in an empty void.
