We sat down with choreographer Adrienne Hart to discuss their latest production Last and First Men, a Neon Dance and Bristol Beacon collaboration with Encounters Film Festival.
Set in a distant future where the human race teeters on the brink of extinction, the last remnants of humanity reach back across two billion years in a stage performance that combines 16mm film with live performances from three dancers and seven musicians.
Opening at Dance City Newcastle on the 18th of September, then moving to Bristol Beacon on the 26th of September, this production will tour internationally into 2026.
How did you approach choreographing movement for a future humanity imagined as both evolved and alien, yet still recognisably human?
I worked closely with the award winning artist Ana Rajcevic whose practice explores radical new possibilities for human augmentation, creating hybrid prosthetics and body-extensions that merge human and non-human forms. We’ve worked together for 10 years so we have a deep understanding of each other’s practice. The fact that Ana is already working with this idea of a future body really helped build a specific physicality. The body-extensions she created came to life when worn by the performers, shaping and affecting each dancers’ movement while also expanding their physical expression. The dancers and I also worked closely with the beautiful descriptions of the ‘last men’ in Olaf Stapledon’s novel to inspire Last and First Men’s movement language.
In weaving together Jóhann Jóhannsson’s film, Yair Elazar Glotman’s live score, and your choreography, how did you ensure each element retained its own voice while forming a coherent whole?
This was the first project that I’ve worked on where I’ve started with a ready made film and score, but I felt there was space in both for the choreography to emerge. There are no people present in Johannsson’s film so this gave me the opportunity to work with my team to imagine what those future bodies might be like, how they might move and communicate. I enjoyed finding ways for the film to extend beyond the screen, through lighting and movement referencing what is present in the images. We also have moments in the work where the dancers frame the space and hand over to the music, light, image. It’s a dialogue and in a way a dance.
What role does discomfort — as well as solace — play in shaping the audience’s experience of Last and First Men?
Audiences will experience sci-fi bodies moving in futuristic costumes designed to connect and extend their physical forms. Tilda Swinton’s narration is delivered with icy precision and depicts the last generation of humanity in the far future, whilst giant concrete structures in 16mm black and white film project behind. Johannson’s emotive final score, weightless and mournful, completed by Yair Elazar Glotman after his passing provides an eerie yet beautiful soundtrack. The performance challenges the very concept of human identity and explores the potential evolution of the human form, questioning how far we can push the boundaries before humanity becomes something unrecognisable. There’s space within the work for audiences to reflect and meditate on their own relationship to the world in which we live and where we might be heading. This might cause some discomfort, but I believe that there’s also beauty and potential in all that might happen and could be.
Working so closely with Jóhannsson’s collaborators and legacy, did you feel more a custodian of his vision or a co-creator extending it into new territory?
I never got to meet Jóhannsson when he was alive so I have no sense of what he would think of this iteration of Last and First Men, however having the approval of his estate and close collaborators, to be trusted with his final work means a lot. Because all of the work I create is in collaboration with others (I try to foster a process whereby everyone works together to create something that we could not have created alone) I always have some detachment once a work exists in the world. It’s like it grows into its own entity and often the choices I make are not ones made out of personal taste but what is best for the work. In the original book Last and First Men written by Olaf Stapledon, you’re led to believe the writer is being fed the words he writes from one of the future humans. I like the idea that somehow Jóhannsson was present in the studio with us… and to answer your question, perhaps a little bit of both?
How does speculative fiction — imagining life two billion years in the future — open up possibilities for contemporary dance to reflect on the present?
I’m a big science fiction fan, particularly works written in the 1930’s. I love how the creativity inherent in the genre allows the reader to imagine the unimaginable and how what might seem impossible has over time passed from science fiction to science fact whilst other ideas present in speculative fiction remain enticingly close. I felt Olaf Stapledon’s Last and First Men was really relevant to today, it speaks of the fragility of civilization; our capacity for both creation and destruction. The many iterations of humans outlined in wonderful detail from the 1930’s to two billion years in the future offered this incredible archive of bodies to draw from as a choreographer. We focused on the final humans, which is actually just a small section near the end of the book but there was so much there to draw from and be inspired by.
Given Neon Dance’s ethos of accessibility and experimentation, how do you hope younger or first-time audiences will connect with this ambitious, cross-disciplinary work?
In some respects the work is unashamedly abstract but there’s a lot to connect with to draw in first-time and younger audiences. The themes tap into the situation we all find ourselves in, the enormity of the universe in which we are nestled within. It’s a multisensory experience and my aim is to immerse audiences into an almost collective dream or perhaps group meditation of sorts! A friend who watched the premiere in Berlin said how he enjoyed watching the audience ‘like children listening to a great story teller. That’s maybe my aim. Through striking performances, transformative costumes and powerful visuals, light and sound, the show invites the audience to reconsider their perceptions of embodiment. The unforgettable narration by Tilda Swinton amplifies the experience, guiding the audience through a provocative exploration of humanity’s future.