Bits and bytes flicker in the cold light, while wild, expressive bodies move between translucent screens. Three dancers are immersed in streams of motion responsive visuals, presenting a symbiotic relationship between body and technology.

Through a live motion capture system, the dancers become at once set, lighting and characters in a narrative where the boundaries between self and other, human presence and digital pattern, become increasingly hard to define.

Set to an electrifying and soul-stirring score by Mercury Prize 2021 nominated composer Hannah Peel and music producer Kincaid, Anti-Body explores our drive to transcend the material constraints of the human body and the promise of freedom this dream is built upon. Charting different courses through an illusory visual world of abstract code and uncanny beauty created by digital artists Uncharted Limbo Collective, the performers represent the many questions and tensions facing humanity as possibilities for life in a disembodied form become ever more real.

Sadler’s Wells New Wave Associate Alexander Whitley has rapidly established a reputation for creating highly ambitious and intellectually engaged work with innovation and digital technology at its core.

[Image description] A solo dancer stands with feet wide, one arm twisted up overhead. He’s in silhouette against a digital projection of blurred numerals on a turquoise background, overlaid with a computer graphic figure that seems to shadow him.

Anti-Body is supported by Arts Council England, DanceEast, DCMS Culture Recovery Fund, John Ellerman Foundation, ERMAK Group, MA scène nationale – Pays de Montbéliard, Nicholas Berwin Charitable Trust, Charles Glanville, and the generous support of individual donors. In-kind support from Queen Mary University, London, Target 3D and Sodium.

Header image © Sodium/Bullet