Our arts reviewer, Hannah Hobson, shares her thoughts on Find Your Flow by Grim Visions.
The third of Arthur C. Clarke’s three laws is so often cited it is almost an adage: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. It is this quotation, however, that comes to mind watching Ed Grimoldby’s performance, Find Your Flow. Grimoldby (Grim Visions) has succeeded in using poi dance and projection to create stage magic in its purest form.
The work is both atmospheric and dynamic. While I usually struggle to fully engage with any work that doesn’t include dialogue, perhaps due to my background as a playwright, Find Your Flow utilises dance to encapsulate feeling so completely that I had no choice but to fall in love with the form. It is in two parts, the first more eerie, the second leaning towards the more punchy. The projection and poi dance work cohesively with the music to create a visual landscape that I wanted to tumble into headfirst.
When I spoke to Grimoldby about this project at the beginning of July, he described this work as a duet between video projection and dance. This seems incredibly apt on viewing this ten-minute video. The poi dance in itself would be a feast for the eyes. Similarly, the projection tells its own narrative with light and movement. Yet each would be incomplete without the other, like listening to a karaoke track without a vocalist to put in the melody. It is impossibly cohesive.
While I am sure that the sheer technical complexity of creating a work such as this would be staggering to a layperson, the beauty of Find Your Flow is that it is seamless. There can be no doubt that Grimoldby has succeeded in demonstrating the potential of projection and poi to create a fantastic audiovisual experience. I’m sure I’m not alone in being excited to see how this method may be utilised as a stunning part of more conventional narrative theatre.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Even knowing, academically, that Grimoldby’s work is the culmination of technological achievement, no more magic than the internet or CGI technology, watching Find Your Flow, it would be easy to think I was observing the enacting of some ancient rite. Grimoldby has succeeded in merging the hypermodern with the primal fascination with light.
[Hannah Hobson – Arts reviewer]