Leviathan, inspired by Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, is a piece of dance theatre following the journey of Captain Ahab, obsessively seeking revenge on ‘The White Whale’, a creature who tore off the captain’s leg on a previous voyage. The cast features an all male crew which was decided upon purposely as a way of demonstrating Wilton’s belief that men are destroying the planet; essentially women are creating life and men are taking it away.

The whale, represented by a soloist dancer dressed in white, was a beautiful sight to look at. The fluid execution of the choreography captured the elegance and power that such a creature holds; being ‘brutal yet beautiful’ and was portrayed successfully as a representation of Mother Nature.

Mother Nature played a huge part throughout this piece with the main theme being the lack of connection human beings have with nature. Underneath the main plot line of the captain and his relationship with the whale, a parallel story was provided for the audience, presenting our relationship, as humans’ to nature. I particularly liked the idea of the dancers using their bodies to create an image of the five stages of evolution which was then ‘shot’ down, through the form of mine, by the captain. This was referred back to several times throughout the performance, as if directed towards the audience, to keep reminding them personally of how they are affecting the world around them.

Wilton’s style of choreography is unique and like no other I have seen. The dancers used their kinosoheres to create visually interesting shapes to look at, executed the movements with impeccable control, gracefulness, and with beautiful transitions. The combination of marshal arts influenced tricks, integrated together with other movement was brought together fluidly and a phrase of movement was described by Wilton himself as being a ‘sentence’; the tricks are the punctuation and without punctuation a sentence cannot flow.

Overall, I feel the piece was visually exciting, thought provoking and presented the audience with an issue which needs to be addressed, however I did find the story hard to follow at particular points. Whether that was due to my own lack of education on the matter or the way some of the information was portrayed, I do not know – perhaps a bit of both however I do believe this was an interesting piece of theatre to watch and like with all theatre, things can be learnt from the performance and the shows content.

Review by
Kayleigh Allan

Grand Theatre, Young Ambassador