If you’re going to launch the biggest cultural building in Britain since Tate Modern, one that has cost somewhere in the region of £240m, then what better way to do it than with a dance adaptation of The Matrix, a cult series of movies that gained many of their main effects through groundbreaking CGI? The ambition is breathtaking.
But somehow that feels right for Aviva Studios, the new arts development that was once called Factory International until an insurance company stumped up a lot of extra cash to help it put its dreams into action. The clumsy name may just be worth it if the organisation, under artistic director John McGrath, can keep its sense of artistic daring.
Free Your Mind bodes well. The brainchild of director Danny Boyle, choreographer Kenrick “H20” Sandy and composer Michael “Mikey J” Asante of Boy Blue, designer Es Devlin and writer Sabrina Mahfouz, it has the breadth of vision and enough panache to fill the massive spaces with a show that is both genuinely popular and artistically sophisticated.
Less a narrative, more a series of moving tableaux that conjure key scenes and themes from The Matrix, Free Your Mind begins in the 1,600-capacity Hall, which has seats in lush lime green velvet and a movable proscenium arch. It opens, surprisingly, with computer scientist Alan Turing, whose agonised lecture (in voiceover accentuated by Ian Harris’s staccato movement) sets up the arguments of the piece: the complicated relationship between humankind and machines, and the ethical and moral questions around who controls what and to what purpose.
Then we’re off and running under Lucy Carter’s lighting, great beams crisscrossing the stage, smoky patterns arising. Dancers appear writhing in stretchy, silky sacks, conjuring the sleeping humans who power the Matrix, and so does Trinity (Nicey Belgrave) in shiny black PVC and a red wig, scything down British policeman with high kicks. Neo (Corey Owens) and Agent Smith (Mikey Ureta) battle for the universe, surrounded by black-clad dancers, representing sometimes relentless machines, sometimes troubled humans, their movement thrillingly precise.
Alongside the movie tribute, however, the creators keep a questioning undertow. One of the best scenes features a white-gloved robot that killed its owner to save its own life, twisting and popping with strange pathos. At the close, in a spectacular bit of stagecraft featuring fire and trapeze, the humans scorch the sky, destroying their own environment.
Then there’s an interval and a move to the 5,000 capacity Warehouse – 21 metres high and nearly long enough to house a Boeing 747 – which Devlin has transformed into a giant walkway, shrouded in silk, with funnelled ends, and a huge screen overhead to project Luke Halls’s many-imaged videos. Blue-wristband wearers stand and sit one side, red go the other.
Here, Gareth Pugh’s witty costumes come into their own as the show enters the contemporary world, and the addictive power of technology, with dancers representing Google logos and (wonderfully) a box of Amazon parcels in long black gloves.
Sandy’s ability to marshal massed ranks of dancers (50 in all, with 28 recruited from in and around Manchester) produces waves of sweeping hip-hop dance that propulsively fills the space. The performers are passionate and accurate, though one of the best moments is when Sandy himself steps out as Morpheus, graceful hands shaping the air, beats rippling through his body, utterly commanding and compelling.
The entire production has an energy and an imaginative power that fills the space. It’s a triumphant beginning for a new artistic endeavour, full of love for Manchester, announcing Aviva Studios as a place to watch.
