World's Evolution dance review: Hip hop meets humanity
Glasgow collective Three60 fuse theatre, hip hop and contemporary dance in an ambitious exploration of human connection, culture and identity
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Theatre is not ordinarily associated with hip hop. Neither is hip hop ordinarily associated with Scotland. Yet World’s Evolution by Glasgow-based dance collective Three60 combines all three by reaching beyond provincial borders such as genre or nation, and towards some common humanity.
The stage is orange and hazy. The Lion King’s ‘Circle Of Life’ fades in while dancers lie curled under a screen which plays a pre-recorded performance by the troupe’s younger members. It’s a fitting beginning to a show that aims to track the movements of human history through dance, starting at the end with the next generation before flashing backwards, all the while aiming to have us ‘wake up’ to those things that connect rather than separate.
Divine Tasinda, one of Three60’s co-founders, takes up the role of ‘Mother Nature’. The other dancers orbit her, melding contemporary and street dance to pull on the tension between nature and human progress by way of more tangential allusions to vague crises, AI, female rage, toxic masculinity and religion. At times, the show’s narrative gets lost in its own ambition.
World’s Evolution is at its best when the company are most visibly revelling in the energy of African diasporic dance forms which root the show: hip hop, krump and popping. One dance, accompanied only by the sound of the dancer’s feet and their uniform chanting, is a particular standout. They hold their energy at dizzying heights until a final bow, overwhelming the venue with indisputably powerful movement.
World's Evolution is touring Scotland until Thursday 23 April; reviewed at Lanternhouse, Cumbernauld; picture: Joseph Obawole.