In another world

Ten centimetres of cold water, a giant paddling pool, and a backdrop of black binliners. It doesn’t bode well for the women of the Pacific Islands, whose largely wordless world theatre is to be performed on said set.

The initial fears don’t entirely dissipate, though there’s dramatic magic aplenty in Nina Nawalowalo’s emotive show, a heartfelt ode to the strength, sensuality and ageless beauty of island women.

Fiona Collins, who also choreographs, is so flawlessly fluid in her movements that her hands, dancing along a strip of light and the mirror of the water’s surface, seem more marine creature than human appendage. In fact, Nawalowalo and her four-strong company evoke the sea, its mystic potency, its hidden treasures and the mixed blessing of its link to Western traders, with such impeccable, transparent, proud skill, you can almost taste the salt spray of their distant ocean. But then, with a bump, you’re back in the Barbican, worrying about whether they’ll all get ear infections.

The shabby design, a shamefully lacklustre score and poor sound puncture the pictures Nawalowalo works so hard to create. Cognitively, the journey from past to present quickly loses its way. And for every breathtaking Karanga, a sacred Maori call, performed under a fishing net by Ngapaki Emery (pictured), there’s a scene that falters fatally on the brink of credibility.

Lucy Powell Until May 3, Mon to Sat 7.45pm, £15. Tel: 0845 120 7550. www.barbican.org.uk

Vula
Barbican: The Pit
Silk Street, EC2Y 8DS