Two dancers perform in a space that shrinks as they perform. Does the gimmick work?

Updated June 4, 2026 — 1:23pm,first published May 28, 2026 — 12:56pm

The set-up for Red is so simple you might almost call it a gimmick. Two dancers are placed before us in a clear plastic tent connected to a large vacuum machine. Over the course of the 45-minute performance, the air is steadily sucked out of the sealed tent.

Such devices, for all their literalness, do sometimes have a special kind of power because the stakes are real. The performance is constrained by something beyond the usual conventions of the theatre: the show can’t go on if there’s no more air.

Here, however, I was not much moved by the plight of the dancers.

Performed by Sabine Crompton-Ward and Michael Smith, the work begins with small, robotic movements, then develops through heavy floorwork, with lots of nudging and heaving, as they push and carry each other around their plastic bubble.

Then, far too soon, the choreography – created by outgoing Dancenorth artistic co-directors Amber Haines and Kyle Page – gives way to the manipulation of the transparent covering.

At the end, with the dancers neatly vacuum-packed, I was left rather cold. Why was this even made as a duet? Wouldn’t a solo have been more poignant? Why did they take their clothes off at the end? Shouldn’t they have been naked from the beginning? Or not at all?

Most of all, I wondered why it was called Red. Yes, the dancers’ hair and costumes are red – but why? The company has said red hair was initially used as a symbol of vulnerability and possible extinction. This idea, however, does not really translate to the stage.

For me, this choice, like the others, felt arbitrary. Visually, having one dancer with red hair and another with blue would have been more effective and the images created inside the bag would have been no less confusing.Reviewed by Andrew Fuhrmann

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