Deepstaria review – Wayne McGregor's otherworldly creatures beguile

The Guardian

28-02-2025

The dancers in Wayne McGregor's Deepstaria are captivating creatures, miraculous in their facility for movement. Their figures evolve in front of us, lines melting into curves, convex convulsing into concave. In beguiling, often quite balletic dance, you marvel at the absolute clarity of their forms – bodies revealed in minimal black underwear or translucent organza that appears to float.
Floating is a thing. The title Deepstaria refers to a type of jellyfish, and there's a sense of rippling through the weight of deep water. The show's other USP is that the set is made with Vantablack, a super-black coating that absorbs 99.9% of light (normally used in telescopes and space technology). A large black square, a void, is at the centre of the stage. But rather than an all-enveloping darkness, there is a haze and streaks of milky light (and at one point a very cool lighting effect like a giant rain shower).
Deepstaria has a little more breathing space than some of McGregor's work; the choreography is quieter, with a focus on solos and duos that invite us to watch intently. These dancers may be like otherworldly creatures, but there are also some very human moments: concordance and connection, fleeting antagonism, a fraught duet and an incredibly tender one for two men, which is a highlight.
Not so quiet is the score, created by Nicolas Becker and Alex Dromgoole, AKA LEXX, who is the co-founder of Bronze AI, a tool that makes recorded music evolve as if it's being played live. It's a fascinating sound-world, a step up from your average rumbling atmospherics. It is also deliberately contrarian: anti-melody, hooks and regular rhythm, which is wearing after a while. The idea may be to keep the viewer on the edge of their seat, alert, but in practice it can have the opposite, numbing effect. Of course, in the deepest sea, or outer space, we might first see the awe-inspiring beauty, but the reality is something much more dangerous – perhaps that's what this enervating soundtrack is telling us. Peril lurks in the darkness.
At Sadler's Wells, London, until 2 March