Last Dance: The Wave Epoch

On 24 May 2018, Lighthouse invited an audience to imagine what culture would be like 2000 years in the future, through a unique collaboration between Elijah, GAIKA, Haroon Mirza and Jack Jelfs. Devised and created at the world’s largest scientific experiment – The Large Hadron Collider at CERN (LHC), the performance used artefacts and electronic components left over from old experiments.

An on-stage immersive experiment was performed live to the public for the first time at Brighton Festival. The Wave Epoch presented a fictional scenario into the future in which LHC and CERN had long become redundant and rediscovered by a future civilization. Exploring how our perception of purpose-built locations evolve over time, the artists looked to ritualistic tendencies of humankind and question how these landscapes may be reinterpreted. Acknowledging performance as a form of ritual, The Wave Epoch anticipated the possibility of the LHC losing its original meaning and being read as a site of ceremony, like that of Stonehenge. GAIKA performed The Wave Epoch live at Brighton Festival in two performances at Brighton’s Brighthelm Community Centre.

The Wave Epoch was streamed live and had the potential to tour to other organisations after its second presentation at FACT, Liverpool. The themes explored in The Wave Epoch have formed the starting point from which the open call for Last Dance: Re-Imagined Futures took shape. This commission activated audience to respond to critical and social challenges in technological advances (in 2000 years) through the production of a new artwork by Haroon Mirza. It deepened and diversified the audience by enhancing the experience of existing audiences and extending the reach to new and different groups. It also offered transnational working for artists and organisations.

In collaboration with CERN and FACT, Liverpool.

Photo Bip Mistry