High above the audience, drifting through the iron pillars of the Roundhouse’s central space, seven large round white shapes glide serenely into view. Powered by tiny fans set around their circumference, which produce a whirring sound like a stiff breeze, these drones move using artificial intelligence; each makes its own decisions about where it goes based on information it receives from infra-red cameras. They may choose to cluster together, rise up in intimidating formation, or strike out solo to investigate a human in their vicinity. They are both serene and menacing – in this grand Victorian setting they make you think of the first encounter with the aliens in 'The War of the Worlds'.
These spheres are collectively known as 'Zoological', and are the creation of Random International – the experimental art collective that brought us 'Rain Room' at the Barbican. You can walk among these alarmingly observant objects and experience them as an immersive installation during the day, but on Friday and Saturday nights a dance performance created by Wayne McGregor takes over, to thrilling effect.
McGregor and Random have a long history of collaboration – starting with 2008’s tilting mirror installation, 'Audience', at the Royal Opera House. Here, 15 dancers in tiny black shorts and trainers, each with a plus or minus sign painted boldly on their torso, ebb and flow within the space to a pulsing electronica soundtrack courtesy of Warp Records. Clustering in pairs, trios, or small groups, they power through McGregor’s taut, contorting choreography, then break apart with blithe insouciance. Separated from them by no more than a thin rope, you see this robust physicality up close in all its sweaty detail, and can map the pairings of dancers by the smudges their smearing plus/minus signs leave across each others’ bodies.
Five Royal Ballet dancers are here with Company Wayne McGregor – Ed Watson and a returning Mara Galeazzi create a striking central duet, Galeazzi bristling with warrior attitude as a d’n’b bassline kicks in. And all the while, they are being observed by the spheres, who enact their own dance above them. The dancers pause and look up at these curious objects sometimes, as if awed by them, but otherwise there’s not much sense of connection between these two elements. Nevertheless, there’s a potency in their juxtaposition; the surging energy of McGregor’s dancers enhances how 'alive' the strange shapes above them seem, and the looming presence of the spheres makes these tough, vigorous dancers seem unnervingly vulnerable.