Luna at Sadler’s Wells

Inspired by Once Upon a Time in Birmingham: Women Who Dared to Dream, a book written to celebrate the lives of 30 inspirational women to mark the 100-year anniversary of the suffragettes, Luna is a ballet made up of six acts created by female choreographers. Through dance, song and set design, these scenes explore overcoming adversity through dreaming, growing and fighting back – all against the backdrop of the moon.

Luna begins with Terra (Earth), choreographed by Wubkje Kuindersma and featuring children carrying lit-up mini-moons. A wavy background brings the sea to mind while white misty fog drifts across the stage. Terra is nicely done, if not groundbreaking, and introduces the earth, sea and moon as characters in the story. Whilst it’s not immediately clear how Terra relates to women, on closer reflection Terra represents the female archetype of the moon, the earth and the sea.

Learning to Dream Big by Seeta Patel begins in a boarding school overlooked by a Disney-style animated moon. Wearing white pyjamas with subtle olden-day details like bloomers, which create the feeling of being in the past, six girls dance with illuminated books as they realise and act out their dreams for when they grow up. One is a doctor, pulling on invisible gloves before aiding the sick. In one moment, she performs CPR, resulting in the patient rippling up from the ground in a bridge position. The end of Learning to Dream Big is particularly striking, as one of the dancers writhes around on the floor, holding her head in agony because try as she might her book won’t light up – because she doesn’t have a dream. She reaches out to her friends who fan their fan-like books, and they literally lift her up in a scene of female solidarity. This is a lovely sequence, which conveys its concept in a clear, playful way.

A young woman in red dances with an unsteady step in Unwavering by Thais Siarez. A shadowy male figure lingers behind, lifting her, spinning her around. She seems childlike, relying on her companion to give her comfort and hold her up, but towards the end he fades into the background and smoke billows around as her movements become stronger, breaking out of her invisible barrier.  The audience gets the sense that there is something meaningful happening, and the dancers’ faces are full of raw, sorrowful emotion but it’s unclear exactly what is going on. Is the shadowy figure a friend or a foe? Is the woman escaping him or missing his absence? It’s a beautiful number with impressive opera singers, but this reviewer missed the meaning behind it.

Luna combines traditional ballet with opera, art, storytelling and with the overarching theme of the moon as the one constant in all these disparate tales. It may not always have the most pertinent narrative, but there is more than enough to make it worth your while.

Sophia Moss
Photos: Katja Ogrin

Luna is at Sadler’s Wells from 22^nd until 23^rd October 2024. For further information or to book visit the theatre’s website here.

Watch the trailer for Luna at Sadler’s Wells here: