Gravity & Levity – Shift, Corn Exchange, Brighton, May 12

2:36pm Wednesday 14th May 2008

Despite describing itself as a fusion of contemporary dance and aerial circus, the evening began with an announcement: "There will be no sequins, no unitards...no trickery or people pretending to be mysterious creatures," and, with a hand gesture to the hanging platform and web of ropes suspended from the ceiling, "this is high art".

Shift is the result of a weighty concept that sounds interesting on paper but, on the night, failed to live up to the promise.

The end of the performance did improve, as the influence of Stomp creators Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas was fully felt. Unfortunately, for me, this was not enough to save the day.

I left feeling like I had seen neither a dance performance, nor aerial acrobatics, and certainly not a production that combined the best elements of both. It seems the many ideas and concepts got in the way of the performance itself, which in the end illustrated neither gravity nor levity but a compromise somewhere inbetween.

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