The underwater world proves to be the ideal environment for Red Leap's unique blend of puppetry, dance and physical theatre in Sea.
The production opens with vast expanses of billowing silk conjuring up an apocalyptic deluge, and as the drama plunges beneath the luminous surface of a turquoise sea the audience is submerged in a breathtakingly beautiful vision of aquatic life.
Julie Nolan and Kate Parker have created an exquisitely crafted menagerie of sea creatures that are brought to life in finely choreographed sequences in which the motion of puppets is seamlessly blended with the dance of the puppeteers.
The puppets are often broken into separate pieces that are animated by synchronised teams of operators, and as the fragmented sections swirl around the stage the audience must draw on their own imagination to complete the illusion.
The technique is particularly effective in expressing the majestic proportions of a blue whale, and the company displays a rich vocabulary of movement that convincingly evokes the rhythmic undulation of jellyfish, the sinuous poise of drifting stingrays and the restless quivering of darting shoals of small fish.
