Now in their eighth year as Barbican Artistic Associates, Boy Blue Entertainment may have spent a large chunk of that time touring the award winning pieces that started their journey here up and down the country, but there is no mistaking they are right at home on the Barbican’s stage as they return with a brand new production.
An abstract piece using the unrest of today’s world as a stimulus, the three colours of the title are presented as three separate acts exploring phases we have all either experienced, are currently experiencing or have yet to experience at the hands of modern day society.
Having mastered the art of bringing stories to life through hip Hhp dance with the likes of 2009’s Pied Piper (read review) and 2014’s The Five and the Prophecy of Prana (read review), the multi-talented power house lead us in to new territory with Blak Whyte Gray.
An abstract piece using the unrest of today’s world as a stimulus, the three colours of the title are presented as three separate acts exploring phases we have all either experienced, are currently experiencing or have yet to experience at the hands of modern day society.
Whyte greets us as the first act with characters in straitjackets stuck in a rigid world, visibly stuck, and distressed. Evoking feelings of frustration we have all felt at one time, the physical representation of being held back without a clear barrier to overcome hones in on the millennial experience especially.
As in the real world, distress soon turns in to frustration and in turn rebellion, brought to us in the form of a set of new age freedom fighters breaking free and krumping their way through Gray, until we find ourselves in the final act Blak.
Having come together, the group now guide each other to a new level of understanding, supporting one another as each member manages to see the world and themselves from a higher point of view. Letting loose along to a fantastically uplifting track, the piece comes to a close with a celebration filled with traditional African influences of music, body paint and dance.
