As forest fires burn across southern Europe, in Antarctica the depletion of Larsen C is of weighty concern. A floating platform of ice on the eastern side of the Antarctic, covering an area of 47,000 square kilometres, it is the largest remaining of its kind on the peninsula; but in 2017 it split, sending an iceberg the size of Luxembourg floating off into the South Atlantic Ocean. 

Larsen C inspired this intriguing dance piece by Greek choreographer Christos Papadopoulus, although whether it is the iceshelf we are concerned with here or the errant iceberg A-68 it gave birth to, and that has since broken up and vanished, is unclear. Perhaps both. 

“When we see something from a very close up or from very far away; or if we see something for two minutes or we see it for two hours it changes for us,” says the choreographer. “I wanted to work with perception. So how in our everyday lives perceptions keep on shifting and moving, that the smallest movement, like the tip of an iceberg, can conceal a hefty imagination behind it, or alternately tiny changes have phenomenal consequences.” 

Seven dancers dressed in shiny black and accompanied by music in a 1980s discotheque aesthetic move minimally, inviting the audience to work in spotting small changes to their movements that impact their body shapes. At one point a piercing light shines out, while a dancer moves in front of it, appearing massive (if you can bear to look); at another smoke is pumped out and hangs blocking the top half of the stage, cutting dancers short. At its best dancers come together, evoking the grinding progress of an powerful object that is, in fact, fragile, melting and changing form or breaking up and dissolving into nothing.

The east coast of the Antarctic peninsula once had four main ice shelves, Larsen A, B, C and D. Ice shelves are critical for holding back glaciers that would otherwise flow into the ocean and add to sea levels rising. The Larsen A and B shelves collapsed in weeks during 1995 and 2002 respectively. As the climate warms, Larsen C may follow suit. The inevitable grind of impending climate catastrophe is approached in this piece, yet not quite confronted with the determination it deserves.