Colossus, Queen Elizabeth Hall

Last Updated on June 27, 2026

Australian Choreographer Stephanie Lake’s UK Debut

3.0 out of 5.0 stars

As every dictator and cult leader knows, there’s a special dynamic to large groups of people moving in strictly coordinated unison.  It never fails to have an impact: it astounds, dazzles or frightens.  And for a while Colossus, Australian choreographer Stephanie Lake’s work for a massive group of well-marshalled performers, does all three – until it doesn’t.

Created in 2018, Colossus has since travelled the world and has now reached London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, where the stage was taken over by some 50 students from the London Contemporary Dance School.   As you enter the auditorium you catch your first glimpse of them, black-clad, lying immobile in a perfect circle, feet pointing to the centre, under subdued lighting.

Robin Fox’s soundtrack, at first no more than a sequence of unidentifiable noises, elicits wave upon wave of synchronised movement: sequences of turning heads, arms raised, legs flexed – all with split-second timing, the waves flowing like liquid, until one dancer peels off from the group and stands in the middle.

From then on the movement of the mass is dictated by her gestures, sharp, authoritative, brooking no dissent.  The performance becomes a clear comment on the power of one individual to control the masses, or rather, perhaps, the masses’ sheepish willingness to submit to charismatic individuals.

Then they all rise and rush to the centre, enveloping the individual in a wall of humanity, as if rebelling, only to reveal a new leader.  And so it goes on.

That process takes care of the first half of this 50-minute work, and it leads the mind to all kinds of connections, historical, yes, but also the current popularity of dystopian tales of pitiless control by the few over the many: think the hit television adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, or The Hunger Games. Point made.

However, the mood shifts, and the underlying narrative gradually dissolves.  The sound score moves on from vaguely disquieting, often unpleasant noise, towards a propulsive, thumping sort of music, with sequences suggestive of war drums.

Bosco Shaw’s lighting designs pathways on the stage before brightening up to bathe the stage in harsh white light.

Now the masses seem to be their own masters, building up to a kind of collective frenzy.  They march, they chant, they yell – ‘yah-yah-yah!’ – they run.  And occasionally, almost inevitably, they turn on one individual in a vague suggestion of The Rite of Spring.   

Throughout, these young performers’ coordination is awe-inspiring.  50 pairs of legs and gesticulating arms criss-crossing the space at speed, smaller groups taking turns centre stage, stopping, starting and not a single collision, on the contrary, everything executed with perfect placement and timing.  Remarkable  performers; plaudits, too, to rehearsal directors Nicole Muscat and Sarah McCrorie

As an exercise in large-scale coordinated movement, Colossus is relatively interesting; but its underlying narrative petered out halfway through, and with it went the piece’s hold on my attention.

Colossus is at the Queen Elizabeth Hall 25 – 27 June at 7:30 pm. Friday mat at 2 pm.

Dur.: 50 mins approx. Tickets £22 – £46

Queen Elizabeth Hall
Southbank Centre
Belvedere Road
London SE1 8XX

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