In the concrete bowels of the Barbican Centre in London, punters are hurriedly kitted out in futuristic garb, like astronauts suiting up before a spacewalk. Motion sensors are strapped to wrists, knees and ankles; heavy backpacks are hoisted onto shoulders; helmets and goggles are ratcheted tightly around heads. “Have fun,” a brisk technician entreats. “Move around, dance. But don’t roll on the floor—you’ve got a very expensive computer strapped to your back.” With that the goggles power up, the headphones switch on and the evening’s entertainment begins.
The orchestrator of this ritual is Blanca Li, perhaps the most in-demand choreographer in Europe. Her accolades indicate a figure at the pinnacle of the artistic elite: a Gold Medal of Fine Arts from the king of Spain, a Légion d’Honneur and membership of the Académie des Beaux Arts from France. Her roster of celebrity collaborators is just as distinguished: Kanye West, Beyoncé and Daft Punk are among them.
Yet, as her experimental virtual-reality show at the Barbican suggests, she has a complicated relationship with the dance establishment, which is prone to fussing over formal purity. As both choreographer and dancer, the energy of Ms Li’s work derives from the friction between rigorous excellence and messy creativity. That tension is evident in person. She bustles in late, but emanates composure. Switching between French, English and her native Spanish, she issues instructions to the technical team with the focus of a military general, but discusses her ideas with the overflowing enthusiasm of an undergraduate student.
That duality was apparent from early in her life. Growing up in Granada as one of “very many”—Ms Li has six brothers and sisters in all—she was a gymnast before she was a dancer, and won a place on Spain’s national team. But gymnastics, she says, was “very square. Everything is ‘he says it, you have to do it.’ And everything has a name.” In any case, by the time she was 16, the years of rigorous training had pushed her body to the extent that it stopped growing properly. In need of a change, she moved to New York to study dance: “I heard there was something else there that was more free, more creative.”
That something was hip-hop dance, which at that time was exploding into existence. The trip was meant to last three months; she stayed for five years. “It was a moment of real craziness,” she recalls. Students from different disciplines—film, music, art—would step in to help with one another’s performances and exhibitions. It was, she says, an “exchange with other kinds of art that would open my mind”, and that would ultimately “change my life, point of view”.
Next came Paris. Money to found her own dance company was raised by “Les Fiestas de Blanca Li”, cabaret performances staged in Pigalle, in the 1990s a down-and-out quarter. The “Fiestas” were notoriously louche affairs, where Ms Li alternated between dancing flamenco and hosting drag shows. Celebrities swarmed in. During the course of one especially disorderly evening, ripe tomatoes were doled out to members of the audience to throw at the stage; Madonna reportedly walked out when a performer lobbed one back at her.
Even as Ms Li’s fame grew, the French Ministry of Culture continued to decline her company’s applications for grant money. Penury bred creativity. When male dancers proved too expensive, they were replaced by a more economical option: mannequins.
The same dogged ambition in pursuit of imaginative ideals was required for “Le Bal de Paris”, the new virtual-reality project. Ms Li has experimented with new technologies before. Her last performance to come to the Barbican featured dancers performing alongside humanoid robots. But “Le Bal de Paris” was of a different order of complexity: a full-length show in which audience and dancers share a virtual space, with motion sensors enabling their digital avatars to move about and interact.
The first challenge? Just as in Pigalle, it was “to find the money”. The show was developed in parts, as each chunk of funding came in. A deal was struck with Chanel, who designed virtual outfits for audiences to choose from (your correspondent tried a flowy dress, before plumping for a natty three-piece suit). The production constantly pushed the limits of available technology: “the headset, the backpack, the battery life—if the battery doesn’t last enough, how much can you put inside the project?—I was pushing because I wanted more.”
The result is bizarre, vulgar, over-the-top and hugely enjoyable. Centred around a vague romance plot, the experience unfolds as a 35-minute hallucination, sliding through vast ballrooms and opulent gardens. Glitchy motion sensors mostly fail to do justice to the efforts of the professional dancers in the room. But the digitally flailing limbs somehow contribute to an atmosphere of chaotic camp that is in keeping with the spirit of the thing. It is all a far cry from contemporary dance’s usual reverence for the beauty of bodies in motion. But, as Ms Li remarked in an interview about her “Fiestas”: “My intention is to present absolutely the worst cabaret in the world.” And who could resist that? ■
“Le Bal de Paris” continues at the Barbican Centre, London, until May 28th