‘Dance saved my life,’ declares a voiceover about a quarter of the way into WIRED. The final work of Spring Forward 2026, it clearly demonstrates how the art form can do exactly that. To pulsing beats played by an onstage DJ, five dancers establish an encouraging and celebratory community, exclaiming ‘ooh,’ ‘aah,’ and ‘that was dope’ as their colleagues execute fancy footwork and robotic body isolations. A highlight comes when they all unite to slap their own – and each other’s – limbs, generating impressive polyrhythmic body percussion that ricochets through the group like ball bearings through a pinball machine.
At times, the work loses momentum. Performers meander awkwardly around the stage in between more exciting scenes, while extended hugging sequences and speeches about ‘don’t go back, go through it’ can feel overly earnest. Still, it all comes together in a rousing final monologue about decolonization and humanity’s need to ‘do better,’ written and delivered with the cadences of a Maya Angelou poem. WIRED proves that dance can hold it all – the pleasure and the pain. It’s just a shame we live in a world where it has to.
By not clarifying whether its cast is dancing for themselves or us, WIRED underplays its own power. Under the feverish glow of red and purple lights, six performers alternate between dancing and adding to a live mix with song, poetry and rapping. Isolated joints ripple like mirages. Shoes bounce into the floor with the tensile quality of a rubberband. Wrists lock and release with percussive precision.
Renowned performer Damon Frost is an elder in the room, schooling us. His easygoing charisma is apparent when he stamps the floor repeatedly, confidently testing it for the best echo, or coaxes the audience into a clapping rhythm, before cheekily leaving us hanging. This intergenerational transmission is politically potent.
When the dancing and the music-making emerge seemingly unscripted, WIRED is effortlessly alive: there’s flickering shadows as two performers get lost in the sound together, and drumbeat cracks of body-percussions exchanged over multiple bodies. These moments are undermined by more set, highly choreographed solos and group work that feel too contained. WIRED just needs to trust its cypher more.