A colleague had to give up tickets for Broken thanks to a work trip. Although contemporary is not really my thing I always like to try new things so headed off to opening night with a friend who is a fan of all things contemporary.
First up the 'music' or as we both agreed noise. It simply felt computer generated and didn't really drive the production forward. But put that aside the production was a series of disjointed scenes. Each scene incorporated nature breaking down from rock structures to volcanoes to caves to an earthquake, the difficulty being that it felt like the scenes were trying to tell a story but just didn't.
In each section the dancers worked with the amazing animations using poles and straps to add an extra dimension to the gymnastic movement. However, at times I felt the dancers distracted from the animations which seemed to move with the sound track instead of against it. The movements seemed jerky and although clearly required strength and skill, you could see the workings rather a smooth movement which would have drawn you in. There was often too much going on at any one time to allow you to focus or take it in and an over reliance on repetition became dull. I also found the exaggerated turn-in difficult and at times a unattractive angle, although I accept they weren't striving for turn out to me it felt awkward.
All being said there were some good moments particularly the segment where the guys wore head lamps and the girls came in and out of the backdrop. We were also incredibly impressed at the precision the dancers used when interacting with the backdrop and animations. They seemed to hit the right spot every time, right on cue which really made a difference. Others in the audience seemed to love it with whooping and cheering but our overarching opinion was that it hadn't been a wasted evening but we probably wouldn't put this at the top of our watch list again.
