With CODES, Dublin-based digital collective MIDASpaces have collaborated with dancers Emma O’Kane, Roisin Laffan and Rob O’Shea, to create a show based on ‘man’s evolving relationship with technology’. Unfortunately, any relationship between the dancers on-stage and the technological aspects of the piece is tenuous at best.

The opening deluge of snowy static spilling over the backdrop of the stage with drummer Adam Power featured in silhouette (probably the most atmospheric part of the show) is a fitting visual analogy for a piece whose impact is muffled by the collision, rather than the coalescence, of its parts. The choreography itself is wooden and unimaginative, O’Kane and O’Shea striking a series of stilted poses rather than presenting a coherent sequence of movements. Laffan’s robotic twitching and gravity-defying tumbles provide an injection of energy but, in general, the movement remains in the same register throughout the piece. The lighting effects wash over the three performers, never really married to the choreography, whilst their gestures towards echoing elements of the music fail to illuminate, or amplify, anything.

Fundamentally, the arrangement of elements in CODES is unbalanced, with the result that the show does not work either as a musical performance, a piece of dancing, or a spectacle of light projection, and still less as a combination of the three.

Star rating: ★★