Review: AUTOPLAY at Longkloof Studios Provides a Jarring, Visceral Commentary on Our Relationship with Technology

Darkroom Contemporary Dance Theatre presents a truly unique experience with this show. Audience members are guided to an industrial-looking studio/warehouse. We immediately observe six performers moving frantically on a platform. Each has a bob-style haircut, and the uniformity in look and the frenetic nature of the movements suggest cyborgs: are we dealing with humans here?

The piece explores the enmeshment of human beings and technology: have we reached the point of no return? This question (along with many others) is explored during the course of six acts or dances, titled: “Genesis”, “Schooling”, “Fall in Line”, “Mort”, “Remnants” and “Dominion”. The audience has a say in how the production ends – I won’t ruin the way in which this audience participation is conducted but I really loved it. It is such a creative and appropriate method and I really enjoyed the subtle audience involvement.

The production features six performers: Bronwyn Craddock, Darion Adams, Vuyelwa Phota, Gabrielle Fairhead, Tamsyn Pretorius and Inge Beckman – each superb in their own right.

The movement in this show is spectacular. The choreography is complex, impressive, sharp and fresh. At once mechanical and fluid, it is a wonder to me how these dancers do not come out of the show bruised and battered after what I imagine to be a truly exhausting feat – and yet they make it look so easy!

I really liked how the stage itself is part of the movement and how the old-school desks and chairs are harnessed in the choreography. The performers also use chalk to communicate with the audience, and various words, messages and symbols are drawn onto the stage and set-pieces by the end of the performance.

The show is also described as an ‘AI opera’. Indeed, one of my favourite aspects of the show were Inge Beckman’s thrilling vocals. Her operatic trilling was haunting, ethereal, unsettling and beautiful all at the same time. It added another layer of accompaniment to this tense production.

Louise Coetzer is the creator, choreographer, director and set designer for this piece – and she has done an excellent job of creating a novel, interrogating piece of theatre.

Kudos must also go to Brydon Bolton for his musical direction and to the composers of the music: Brydon Bolton, Njabulo Phungula and Inge Beckmann.

Since this piece is abstract, viewers will be able to interpret the production freely. For example, on the way out of the show, I heard two audience members discussing how, to them, the show comments on the accumulation of wealth and the companying “I want more” mentality – that of being eaten alive by consumerism. For me, it highlighted how technology has advanced to the point that it has become a crutch. An alarmist follow-up question becomes how close are we to the singularity? (And I’m only half-joking). It also made me think of factory farming – hordes of animals stuffed and overstimulated, led to the slaughter. Can the same be said of us?

I also loved AUTOPLAY’s use of apples – what I took to be a biblical reference and a nod to our humanity or lack thereof. What happens when we humanity “eats the forbidden fruit”? What are the consequences – can we go too far? The same questions apply to technology.

Evidently, this piece is thought provoking and stimulates fascinating conversation and ruminations about where we are as a society: so advanced and yet regressing in terms of our ability to imagine and to exist independently of technology?  

I have posed many questions in this review – questions which the show posed to me. Perhaps the best way to describe this production is in Coetzer’s own words: “AUTOPLAY attempts to recognise the absurdity of this moment, where our tech knows more about ourselves that we do…Control and choice become abstract concepts, as our uncritical acceptance keeps the wheels turning.”

In essence, this show jolts us out of our “autopilot” state – as we continue down the road of technological advancement, we must cling to our humanity.

AUTOPLAY runs from 10 to 28 September 2024 on:

-10 September at 20h00 (Preview)

-11,12, 13, 20, 21 September at 20h00

-22 and 24 September at 16h00 (24th followed by an Artist Talk and Q&A session with the artistic team and performers)

-25,26,27,28 September at 20h0

Tickets cost R250.00 and are available via Quicket.

Please note that the show carries an age restriction of 13 and that secure, undercover parking is available at Longkloof Studios.

The fountain on Longkloof Square serves as the meeting point before each performance.

Image credit: Oscar O'Ryan

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