Review by Dominic Corr

Three60

Bodies enter the space already marked by memory. Before a single lift or suspension takes hold, World’s Evolution establishes its central question through movement alone: not how far we’ve travelled, but what we’ve carried with us along the way. Three60’s ambitious, richly layered production unfolds as a physical meditation on humanity’s journey, grounding itself firmly in Africa; The Motherland, and origins stretching outward into the complexity of the modern world. What follows is not spectacle for spectacle’s sake, but an embodied reckoning with where we come from – and with what we have become. From its opening movements, World’s Evolution announces that it is not interested in neat points (though on occasion, the precision rivals that of European Ballet), only in the relentless state of becoming.

The group, founded in 2014 by Divine Tasinda, Kemono L.Riot, Adam McMillan and Levent Nyembo, presents a new work steeped in lineage. Evolution has grown over several years, shaped through community‑focused development and iterative reimagining, and that sense of accumulation is crucial to its impact. The choreography doesn’t rush to conclusions; instead, it builds patiently, allowing forms to emerge, fracture and reform. The collection of smaller pieces, building, understand evolution not as a forward march, but as an ongoing negotiation between instinct, environment and choice.

At the heart of the work lies Africa – not as ornamental reference, but as conceptual anchor. Movement rooted in African and African‑diasporic dance traditions pulses through the production, informing its rhythms, weight and spatial awareness. These influences sit in dialogue with contemporary street styles; hip‑hop, krump, popping and locking, which are woven into the fabric of the choreography rather than layered on top of it. The result is a language of movement that honours origin while acknowledging adaptation, tradition feeding innovation in a continuous loop.

Nature, too, is threaded through the performance with quiet insistence. Early images suggest landscapes rather than locations: bodies curve and cluster like growth patterns, gathering momentum before dispersing again. The sense of Mother Earth as both witness and guide is implicit in the work’s physical vocabulary—balances that yield rather than resist, collective motion that privileges interdependence over dominance. There are moments when the dancers seem less like performers than elements shifting within an ecosystem, responding instinctively to one another.

But this showcase tackles more than nature, the ripple of the spiritual is in-escapable through colour; primarily those of crisp whites and draining black garments. The use of religious and theological iconography and speech is a stark departure from sermon, using movement and dance as an innate communication of soul and body with audiences across any, or absent of, faiths. Capitalism, greed, envy, and the continued violation of the planets eco-system are all present in the piece itself, and accompanying visuals via video projection. At times the projection borders on the excessive; but threads the line enough for movement, light, and tone to be the showcase.

The Studio Theatre’s intimacy serves this vision perfectly. The closeness allows the audience to register micro‑details: the recalibration of grip before a climb, the communal breath that precedes a shared lift, the strain that sits just beneath control. Before the show begins, the theatrical nature is blurred – we are encouraged to make noise, to take video (no flash) and viscerally let the troupe know we are invested.

Colour is key here, from the African sunsets to the grimier nature of industry; lighting and sound are employed with discipline and intelligence. Light reshapes the space constantly, carving silhouettes that echo the thematic tension between unity and fracture. At certain points, performers are isolated within pools of brightness, only to be reabsorbed into the collective. Sound pulses beneath the choreography – not driving it, but pressing against it – suggesting heartbeat, memory and momentum all at once. Silence is given room to breathe, lending gravity to moments of collapse or stillness.

What elevates Evolution beyond an exercise in style is its moral clarity without moralising. The piece gestures toward conflict – internal and external – without reducing it to binaries. Masculine force and nurturing presence, rupture and repair, progress and loss: these elements coexist rather than resolve. The choreography allows friction to remain visible, understanding that growth rarely occurs without resistance. The ensemble work is particularly striking in its sense of shared responsibility. Individual skill never overshadows the collective; instead, each performer’s strength feeds into a wider physical intelligence. Precision and risk are held in careful balance, resulting in a production that feels alive to the possibility of failure without ever succumbing to it.

By the final movement, World’s Evolution has accumulated not answers but resonance. It leaves its audience with the awareness that history is not something left behind—it is something embodied, something danced, something negotiated daily through movement and connection. The production’s closing images suggest continuity rather than conclusion, an invitation to keep revisiting the questions it poses. Three60 is a bold troupe, providing grounded and thoughtful pieces of physical theatre that understands its roots and isn’t afraid to let them show. It offers a vision of humanity shaped by cooperation rather than conquest, by memory rather than erasure; a reminder of how powerful dance can be when it trusts its own history.

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