Prawn Ballet Enters Fourth Year
There are few contemporary sights in dance as quietly arresting as a hundred and thirty-seven prawns moving as one beneath a low blue light.
Prawn Ballet returns to the London Aquarium this September. Now entering its fourth year, the production has become one of the more controversial fixtures in the capital’s dance calendar.
Artistic director Marcel Fenderson said this year’s work has “less movement, but more feeling”, a claim that will be tested during a 14-minute opening sequence in which the company remains largely near the water filter.
Critics have previously praised the production for its restraint, although one reviewer admitted it was “hard to see, as the tank is so far away from the seats.”
Fenderson rejects any ‘human-based’ criticism stating, “You have to stop expecting, and get into the mind of the prawn. A lot of the work is in the antennae.”
The new programme includes a reworked closing sequence, in which the ensemble pirouettes around a pebble for twelve minutes.