A TESTAMENT TO THE MIRACULOUS STRENGTH AND BEAUTY THAT THE HUMAN FORM CAN DISPLAY THROUGH DANCE

By Madeleine Anderson ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | Press Invite

It’s rare that I’ve been to a performance when the audience is whooping before the show is even over. But Sung Im Her’s ‘1 Degree Celsius’ got just this response. 

Featuring seven dancers, 1 Degree Celsius examines the climate crisis and its impact on the living environment. The at times unbelievable precision and pace of the dancers meant the stage often felt like it was being filled by far more people, with the performers shifting between a mechanical sharpness and loose, human vulnerability in their movement.

The show started without music, with a single dancer entering onto the stage with heavy and struggling slumps. The only sound being solo dancer’s occasional breaths and stomps. The humanness of the performer was  the first focus, making their extreme agility all the more impressive, whilst spotlighting their fragility and relatability to the audience.

The music began as more dancers entered the stage, with their movements marked by an ambient track that was almost too quiet to hear.

A heavier techno score was played later in the show, with many audience members bobbing their heads in enjoyment. Climaxing to a loud and overpowering clash of noise, the later music felt both a harsh lesson against ignoring earlier (quieter) warning signs, whilst also offering an excitement and levity to the show.

Inspired by data collected from rising atmospheric temperatures, the musical score is deeply political and urges audiences not only to listen, but to act.

The staging was sparse, with dancers moving across a large white mat which started off pristine and became gradually dirtier and greyer, etched with the sweeps of performers footsteps as the performance began. This staining spoke to the show’s preoccupation with the human impact on space, with our movements leaving marks that we may not notice at first but soon became blindingly obvious.

The lighting shifted later on in the performance to focus on the heavy metal scaffolding that held up the lights above the stage. Placing this set in a blue hue, it seemed like the dancers were moving under water, another nod to the climate crisis which made the performer’s slow and struggling movements all the more harrowing.

1 Degree Celsius is a stirring and rhythmic display of the limits of human life in the climate crisis, and a testament to the miraculous strength and beauty that the human form can display through dance.

1 Degree Celsius is next being performed at Crescent theatre Birmingham, on 8 November.

WEBSITE

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Photo Credit: © 2025 SPAF (Seoul Performing Arts Festival)