Pam Tanowitz's Pastoral explodes into bright bursts of gorgeous dance

Pam Tanowitz's "Pastoral" received its UK premiere at the Barbican, London — a collaboration between the New York choreographer, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw and artist Sarah Crowner, spun off from Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony.

The Guardian's review calls the work "the antidote to the trend in dance for dark and shadowy stages, buckets of theatrical haze, claustrophobic soundscapes and gloopy movement." Instead, the stage is bright, clean and full of white space — literally and figuratively. The critic compares the effect to "a sharp palate cleanser."

What does the choreography look like?

Tanowitz's dance can be eccentric, the review notes, "odd even, but it's also seriously thought-through and specific." Every choice reads as distinct and deliberate. As the critic puts it, "every angle planed to the exact degree." For audiences accustomed to moody, smoke-filled productions, the sheer clarity of the staging is the production's first statement.

How is Beethoven used?

Caroline Shaw pulls apart and deconstructs the Pastoral Symphony. Her score combines:

• Three live musicians playing various reed instruments
• Excerpts of orchestral recordings that "emerge like echoes or memories"
• Real-world sounds of the street, the skies and the city

The production draws its concept from Beethoven's symphony and from the broader idea of the pastoral in art. Rather than restaging the music, Shaw fragments it, letting recorded fragments surface like recollections against the live reeds and field-recorded city noise.

Who are the collaborators?

Tanowitz, based in New York, has built a reputation for rigorously constructed choreography. Shaw won the Pulitzer Prize for music. Crowner, a visual artist, completes the trio. The Barbican premiere marks the work's first presentation to a UK audience.

The review's verdict — "Beethoven explodes into bright bursts of gorgeous dance" — signals that the deconstruction opens space rather than closing it. Tanowitz's dancers, working in the production's literal and figurative white space, find what the critic describes as fresh thinking space within a canonical score. For viewers tracking where abstract dance meets contemporary composition in London, this premiere sets a benchmark for how a 200-year-old symphony can be rebuilt from its echoes.