Terra Incognita

Music by Gabriel Prokofiev, 2014

Choreographed by Shobana Jeyasingh

Stage and Costume Design by Jean-Marc Puissant

Lighting Design by Lucy Carter

Production Manager: Malcolm Glanville

Costume Supervisor: Caroline Hagley

Costume Maker: Karen Sharp

Dyeing: Gabrielle Firth

Images © courtesy of Rambert Dance Company

With this work, Shobana Jeyasingh set to explore notions of journeys towards the unknown – a fascination expressed in most cultures throughout the history of mankind. A physical land, an existential and spiritual quest, the worlds we explore within ourselves and through our relationships with others.

 

We aimed to create a series of episodes inspired by the physical and emotional spaces we inhabit when we set out on these journeys.

 

The scenography dissects the stage in horizontal layers. Panels of Perspex reflect the image of dancers and provide a transparent support of Lucy Carter’s LED lights’ digital content. When layers are removed, further layers are revealed; no finite promised land but the expression of a more universal cycle of organic energy.

The Guardian by Judith Mackrill

It’s a piece about mapping unknown terrain, the 10 dancers navigating a stage that is carved into shifting landscapes by the Perspex panels of Jean-Marc Puissant’s set.

The shifting Perspex panels of Jean-Marc Puissant’s set keep altering the landscape of the stage, herding the dancers into enclosed spaces or opening up new horizons.

 

The Arts Desk by Hanna Weibye

Superior lighting, by Lucy Carter, and design, by Jean-Marc Puissant – both distinguished ornamenters of dance productions. Kilts feature in felicitous colours: plum for the boys, mustard for the girls, and topped with drapey button-front vests in a Farrow and Ball palette of mushroom and silver sand. The rather haunting final section, danced in front of a gorgeous dawn-tinted cloudscape of a painted backcloth.

 

Dancetabs by Graham Watts

Jean-Marc Puissant’s strong designs, both in colourful, moveable set panels and the pleated kilts worn by the five male/female pairs of dancers.

Terra Incognita enjoys excellent set designs (a handsome variety of interpolated panels by Jean-Marc Puissant, who also designed the costumes) and lighting (by Lucy Carter) that achieved the objective of elevating the visual appeal of choreography and design.