Darren Johnston, Zero Point at the Barbican

Zero Point comes from British choreographer and multi-disciplinary artist Darren Johnston, whose distinctive style has always been influenced by his enduring passion for electronic music and a predilection for the surreal.

A Laban Centre for Movement and Dance graduate, Johnston has a clutch of awards for immersive works which combine cutting-edge choreography in contemporary dance technique with striking video and audio elements.

The diversity of his exciting, experimental endeavours has seen Johnston create site-specific, full-scale installations and intriguing commissions for television and film. These include an innovative interpretation of everyday human movement, centred on the rhythms of the body clock, in a live advertisement for Mercedes-Benz last year.

Zero Point represents a new direction for Johnston. Inspired by his time as artist in residence at The Museum of Art, Kochi, Japan, the piece is an exercise in meditative minimalism and simplicity.


Incorporating the latest advances in light mapping and motion-sensing technology, Johnston has drawn on the paradoxes between tradition and technology in Japanese culture to explore the intersection of the spiritual and the scientific.

An ensemble of Japanese dancers – including the distinguished Japanese ballet dancer Hana Sakai – perform choreography instilled with influences from traditional Japanese Butoh and Qigong styles, and neo-classical ballet. Their graceful physicality and precise synchronicity is accentuated by, and juxtaposed against, imposing light sculptures generated by multiple architectural projections.

The dancers and illuminations alike move to the powerful frequencies of Canadian composer, and electronic music pioneer, Tim Hecker’s original soundtrack.

Zero Point was presented as a work-in-progress to a sold-out Barbican Theatre in 2014. Following the final project’s well-received premiere at Kochi last June, we’re anticipating more sell-out shows this season.