Matthew Hindson’s E=mc2 was performed by the Birmingham Royal Ballet (BRB) and Royal Ballet Sinfonia, under Paul Murphy, at Sadler’s Wells earlier this month as a feature of the Penguin Café Triple Bill programme. The 30 minute, 4 movement ballet for orchestra and electronics was originally commissioned by BRB in 2009, drawing inspiration from Einstein’s ‘Theory of Relativity’. Choreographer David Bintley and his dance company won the Southbank Show Award for Dance for their production of E=mc2 in 2009, which has since been taken to Tokyo by Bintley, performed by the New National Theatre Ballet.
‘E=mc2 (2009) is a dynamic piece for a large ensemble that bursts with fun, flavour and indignation. Energy is the name of the game, the kind that drives athletes and amour, but also creates universes and destroys Hiroshima. The choreography, set to Matthew Hindson’s dark and exciting score, changes shape as it embraces the elements of Einstein’s great physics theory and journeys through explosion into rebirth.’The Times (Debra Craine), 17 October 2013
‘Aren’t science and abstract dance polar opposites? Yet it is also fascinating. It opens with Energy, the dancers’ fluttering hands and speed-skating-like movements cleverly distilling the convulsive, kinetic fury of Matthew Hindson’s score. Mass features three trios, the girl in each acting like a firm but flexible hinge between the two boys — a vivid sense there of molecules uniting to form something of substance.The Telegraph (Mark Monahan), 21 October 2013
The strangest and boldest section is the third, Manhattan Project, in which a geisha (Samara Downs) poses gracefully as a seat-rattling rumble thunders from the speakers. This is Einstein’s theorum at its most deadly, a visual snapshot of pre-1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki set against the sound of the devastation that was to come.’
‘E=mc2 is a fizzing realisation of a vivid score by Matthew Hindson.’FT (Clement Crisp), 16 October 2013
‘David Bintley's one-act ballets, especially E=mc², sparkled in BRB's performance.The Guardian (Judith Mackrell) 16 October 2013
Its first two sections are especially fine. Energy, the first, is clamorous with activity, its dancers clustered into configurations whose density explodes in one extended starburst of a pas de deux. There's a hypnotic tension between structural rigour and raw energy; and, in the Mass section, that tension stretches into limpid duets and trios, ebbing and flowing across a celestially lit stage.’
‘Moving to the top of the food chain, we have E=mc2, a dramatic and extremely physical experience which explores Einstein’s theory of relativity.The Shuttle (John Phillpott), 5 October 2013
This piece contains passages of some of the most dynamic dance you are ever likely to witness, a group exercise in pushing the human body to its choreographic limits, providing a highly visual metaphor for the orbits of atoms and molecules. This is performed to a specially commissioned score by Australian composer Matthew Hindson.’
‘David Bintley, a Living National Treasure…The Artsdesk (Judith Flanders), 16 October 2013
E=mc2 tops the bill, and remains a work of dazzling originality. Based on an examination of Einstein’s theory of relativity, Bintley breaks the equation down into its three component parts, "Energy", "Mass" and "Celeritas (speed of light)". The first movement, all pounding percussion and sharp angles, is Balanchinean in its attack and ferocity, but shattered into sweetness by the recurrence of petite batterie, an English, Ashtonian lightness; "Mass" is a heavy, lyrical interlude of triplets before the perpetuum mobile that is "Celeritas" is unleashed upon us.’
‘An equation brought to life, the performance showed the gap between art and science to be closer than ever before.’
The National Student (Beth Baker-Wyse), 8 October 2013