Icosa A dance company

Spring 2026

Long Wall

Four dancers and one line across the back of the stage. Nothing comes forward for half an hour.

First performed
2,023
Running time
34 minutes
Dancers
4
Music
Silence, then a single sustained cello
Travelled
6.8 radii

Entirely in the table plane, and deliberately: the piece refuses the audience the sagittal approach that almost every other piece in the repertoire uses to say something is important. Everything stays at the height it started at.

High right — Door plane High left — Door plane Deep right — Door plane Deep left — Door plane Forward high — Wheel plane Forward deep — Wheel plane Back high — Wheel plane Back deep — Wheel plane Right forward — Table plane Right back — Table plane Right back Left forward — Table plane Left back — Table plane Left back

The phrase, written down

5 reaches · 100% of them in the table plane · 6.8 radii travelled

  1. Left back Table plane start
  2. Right back Table plane 1.70
  3. Left back Table plane 1.70
  4. Right back Table plane 1.70
  5. Left back Table plane 1.70

The last column is the straight-line distance from the previous reach, in kinesphere radii. Two is right across the body; the shortest possible step between two of the twelve is 1.05.

How it is danced

Basic Effort Action

Press

Strong, sustained, direct. Moving something that does not want to move.

Weight
Light Strong
How much the body commits its mass. Not how hard the dancer works.
Time
Sustained Sudden
The attitude to time, not the tempo. A slow piece can be full of suddenness.
Space
Indirect Direct
Whether attention goes everywhere at once or to one place.
Flow
Free Bound
How readily the movement could be stopped half way. Not part of the action names.

Also in the repertoire