Katie Hill
The Butterfly Who Flew Into The Rave is a stamina-driven dance production set to the beats of the techno album Nocturbulous Behaviour by Suburban Knight, curated by Oli Mathiesen, Lucy Lynch, and Sharvon Mortimer. Regrettably, I'm not one to frequent raves; I’m not cool enough, nor do I have the rhythm. Mathiesen, Lynch, and Mortimer, on the other hand, epitomize coolness, especially with their creation of this epic endurance spectacle of non-stop, beat by beat choreography – It has my dance-averse self bobbing my head erratically for the full hour and ten minutes these rave machines dominate the stage.
The BATS Theatre Front of House staff provide us with yellow wristbands as tickets – a clever detail. I like that it’s a 6 pm show and the sun is still out until I’m taken upstairs to The Dome’s curtain-drawn stage. I'm met with a pyramid of three dancers cutting aggressive shapes and staring straight ahead stoney-faced. I feel as if I've wandered into the club's hidden enclave, and these individuals seem almost otherworldly. I enjoy the framing of the triangle for this initial sequence, Mathiesen stands at the point, upstage to Lynch and Mortimer. Each dancer seems to be in a different phase of concealment, Mathiesen is wearing a fur trapper hat with shades, Mortimer sports a cap, which casts a shadow on her eyes, and Lynch has her hair scrapped back with her face on full show. More than anything, this feels like a solely aesthetic choice, but it draws my eye to the specific flavour of each dancer’s style. Mathiesen is punctuated with sharp hand movements, Lynch is full body commitment, and Mortimer has a slick subtlety I feel drawn to. I relish this opportunity to admire their individual styles before witnessing them seamlessly merge into a unified force of exhaustion-defying performance art.
The lighting (Jacobus Engelbrecht and Jazmin Whittall) in this exclusive club is a zig-zag of tube lights suspended over the dancers with small cylindrical bursts of neon light that move in time to the beat. By theatre standards, it’s not a simple set-up, but considering this is a rave, it could be more evasive. I think it’s a better choice, our attention is kept focused on the performers, with just enough moments of change and shock to hold our attention. I like that The Butterfly Who Flew Into The Rave doesn’t pump out huge spectacles to keep their audience entertained. Now, don’t get me wrong – I don’t want you to think there aren’t spectacles – the whole show is a spectacle, and there are great shifts in energy featuring UV-lit gloves and epically-timed strobes, however, more of the show is watching three incredibly talented dancers with god-like commitment. It narrows my focus in, I forget when I arrived here - it feels like I’ve been in this backroom forever, but I’m not trapped, I like it here.
The rave rounds off with the final track of Nocturbulous Behaviour, ‘Iapetus’ which sounds like a tired church organ turned synth. The album choice is consistently ideal, but this final techno-religious number feels apt that such a display of physical power summons a spiritual awakening. As an exploration of human endurance – the show does exactly what it set out to do. The Butterfly Who Flew Into The Rave is the coolest version of the beep test I’ve ever seen, and as an audience we’re locked in, rooting for their success whilst in awe of their prowess. Go and vicariously get your cardio in for a month and watch these talented performers for 2 more nights at BATS Theatre, on the 8th and 9th of March. Tickets are available directly from the BATS Theatre website.
The lighting (Jacobus Engelbrecht and Jazmin Whittall) in this exclusive club is a zig-zag of tube lights suspended over the dancers with small cylindrical bursts of neon light that move in time to the beat. By theatre standards, it’s not a simple set-up, but considering this is a rave, it could be more evasive. I think it’s a better choice, our attention is kept focused on the performers, with just enough moments of change and shock to hold our attention. I like that The Butterfly Who Flew Into The Rave doesn’t pump out huge spectacles to keep their audience entertained. Now, don’t get me wrong – I don’t want you to think there aren’t spectacles – the whole show is a spectacle, and there are great shifts in energy featuring UV-lit gloves and epically-timed strobes, however, more of the show is watching three incredibly talented dancers with god-like commitment. It narrows my focus in, I forget when I arrived here - it feels like I’ve been in this backroom forever, but I’m not trapped, I like it here.
The rave rounds off with the final track of Nocturbulous Behaviour, ‘Iapetus’ which sounds like a tired church organ turned synth. The album choice is consistently ideal, but this final techno-religious number feels apt that such a display of physical power summons a spiritual awakening. As an exploration of human endurance – the show does exactly what it set out to do. The Butterfly Who Flew Into The Rave is the coolest version of the beep test I’ve ever seen, and as an audience we’re locked in, rooting for their success whilst in awe of their prowess. Go and vicariously get your cardio in for a month and watch these talented performers for 2 more nights at BATS Theatre, on the 8th and 9th of March. Tickets are available directly from the BATS Theatre website.