The dancing was good and clear and the stagecraft was impressive. The multiple identities on stage created a disturbing, sometimes eerie effect, as when the live dancer stood before – or was it behind, or within? – her digitally-projected self.
Kasturi’s voice was ‘fantastic’ – we felt the pain and emotion. Her singing expressed the desolation.
However, the problem for us was that we didn’t really feel the central narrative – the hacking of a personal account – was that important. As she is looking at instructions on creating a secure password the advice comes up on the screen that ‘it should NOT have anything to do with you’ (which provided a rare moment of humour in the piece). There was potential here: why do we choose particular passwords? Do they contain secrets we have not shared elsewhere? The programme notes observe: ‘the choice of usernames and passwords [inform] you and your identity. Are these usernames representing another persona? If so, is it different or the same as you? Which is the real you?’ But the piece was let down by the script.
It might have been better to have done away with the script and used the dance, visuals and the wonderful expressive voice to communicate the emotion and allow the audience to interpret the ‘story’ in their own way.