Review: The Tale of the Ancient Lights

The Tale of the Ancient Lights

Project Cube

***

If light and electricity were to take on anthropomorphic forms, they might look like Asian performer Riuchi’s hands. Expressive and charged, attracting and repelling like magnets, his hands manipulate a collection of LED technology as if an extension of himself.

Tennis ball-sized globes change hue with the flick of an arm. An ancient-looking scroll transforms into joyful cartwheels of colour that catapult around Riuchi in wide circles. This story transports us from a lantern-lit Asian night into a mad inventor’s dusty workshop, tapping into the imagination with compelling dancing.

Although the tale’s ending drags, the otherwise satisfying journey alternates between shimmering and magical, then jagged and heavy. As if trying to reconcile old and new, this story reflects technology in the hands of a skilled and imaginative user.

Ends Sept 20