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The images depict hybrid animals – part horse, a bit of stag, some eagle – entwined with abstract shapes, conveying a strong sense of movement. Booth has been fascinated by this archaeological discovery since he first read about the tattoos in the 1970s. He is moved by the simple significance of an image which disappears from history for six thousand years and then reappears at a time when no-one knows what the image signifies: he has become the personal embodiment of their reappearance by having had replica tattoos made on his own body.

He sees a metaphor for dance and an archaeology of sensation in these strange, vibrant, dynamic and beguiling images and ‘Ice/Dreams/Fire’ articulates his 30-year fascination with this concept.

But this production is far from being an entirely personal odyssey. Although Laurie’s skin is sufficient testament to his personal commitment, this is very much a collaborative venture.

‘Ice/Dreams/Fire’ mixes four essential ingredients: an ice sculpture, a soundscape, Booth’s own extraordinary movement and Michael Mannion’s exquisite lighting design, which opens up compartments of dynamic space for the different sections of the work.

The ice sculpture, by Tom Richards, a recent Brighton graduate, is absolutely vital to the work. Not only does it dominate the whole of the centre of the upstage space, it is also the trigger which controls the movement and the sound. At first, the exact composition of the sculpture is not obvious but, as the performance unfolds so does the sculpture and its significance. There are around 60 cubes of material suspended at different heights. Gradually, it becomes clear that these are frozen red shirts (Richards later explained that they are frozen in “Tupperware” boxes to create the cubed shape).
 

The thawing process controls the movement and sound. Movement since some of the shirts gradually, slowly and independently unravel to hang as if human torsos, whilst others stubbornly retain their cubed form until the very end of the work. And sound since the thawing ice drips relentlessly into a collection of around 30 diversely sized buckets. Each receptacle has its own contact microphone relaying the resonance and reverberation of the drip to two computers through which composer, Nick Rothwell, manages the development of the Quadraphonic soundscape.

Rothwell, with his computers, also sits absolutely centre stage, immediately in front of the ice sculpture. This means that Booth has to dance around and behind both the musician and the unravelling ice sculpture, creating an ever-changing performance dynamic.

The timing of the installation of the ice sculpture is vital to the performance. It was due to be installed around two hours’ prior to this first performance at the gDA but this was hurriedly brought forward to four hours to maximise the effect. Even so, there was probably still less movement from the thawing shirts during the performance than had been anticipated and some of the most dramatic effects of sudden unwinding did not occur until some 30/40 minutes after the end of the work.

The collaborative improvisation of sculpture, sound, movement and lighting forms the essence of ‘Ice/Dreams/Fire’. The iced shirt installation will always produce very different dispositions of shape and context in both the movement and the sound. But, importantly, the scope for improvisation is firmly anchored to an essential and very disciplined structure.

As the title makes clear, there are three distinct segments to ‘Ice/Dreams/Fire’. In the Ice section, the audience is introduced to the concept of the thawing sculpture and its parenting of the sound, which is deliberately raw in its development of the different pitches attained from the sound of water hitting resonant surfaces. Booth appears from deep downstage, dimly lit, wearing black glasses and holding an Aikido stick. His movement is constricted, frozen. The Aikido pole is an essential aid to the extension of his body’s architecture and line.

Booth is able to do extraordinary things with his body movements – he creates architectural shapes, which are sometimes held as poses but are more often replaced with other shapes, which then make way for yet more. Talking about the performance afterwards, Richard Alston said that Booth has an extraordinary ability to reach into corners of space and this is certainly true. Booth ends the first phase with several obvious hunter-gatherer images: drawing a bow, an arrow in flight, throwing a spear.

The Dream sequence introduces much more variety in the soundscape, including a rolling vocal passage, which turns out to be 40 seconds of speech in Basque by Ballett Frankfurt’s Jone San Martin. Rothwell has deconstructed the shape of the unique, ancient Basque consonants and looped them into the soundscape very effectively.

Laurie Booth’s movement is also very different in this long phase, showing in particular the strong martial arts influences on his work. There are several intensely elegant and unbelievably flexible, long-limbed movements and poses. It has a slow-motion quality of great serenity.

The Final sequence was the one I liked least, particularly the opening passages, which see the dancer jogging, running, seemingly shadow-boxing. It lacks the elegance and relevance of his earlier dance. It also seems to have little to do with fire or else I have missed the reference. In post-performance explanation, Booth explains that the “running thing” is essentially a device to “see what happens when I get exhausted”. It is all about the use of “full-on energy”.

The sequence ends with Booth approaching the buckets and washing in a very ritualistic way, including some fascinating arm-wringing moments which, in the half light, achieved a sort of time-lapse quality. The soundscape also changed significantly in this final section, developing an almost aboriginal pattern.

This is a brilliantly conceived and very intriguing work. It received its world première at the Brighton Festival in May and clearly the experiences of this performance in the much more intimate setting of the gDA were quite different to Brighton.

Laurie Booth is motivated by the possibility of doing things that have never been done before or doing them in a different way than ever before. ‘Ice/Dreams/Fire’ is an intricate and complex integration of human and sculptural movement, sound, and lighting, which achieves a complex layering of sensations. This was his first performance in London for 8 years and it was well worth the wait.