Dance / Main Character Energy, The Chaos Project, QL2. At Belco Arts, until October 25. Reviewed by SAMARA PURNELL.

The term Main Character Energy emerged from social media trends and is the theme of this year’s Chaos Project, presented by QL2.

Three alumni returned to QL2 to create the works alongside artistic director Alice Lee Holland, for the dancers, aged between seven and 16.

Together, they explored themes of good versus evil, superheroes and villains, the co-existence of self confidence and self focus in each person and portrayals of these ideas in fairytales.

Opening with Once upon a Time, the dancers crossed the stage in typically-seen superhero poses and danced holding apples, referencing the Snow White story. This led into choreographer Ruby Ballantyne’s The Sidekick Revolt! – a fun theme and age appropriate, nine young sidekick dancers, completely committed to their characters, audition for the next Capital superhero.

They acted out and mouthed the words to their voice-overs and gave plenty of energy, enthusiasm, personality and confidence, as only children can, wearing white leggings with superhero undies over the top. This definitely put a smile on everyone’s face. Set to music that called to mind ’80s TV shows, the moral message at the end took the edge off the light-heartedness that was being enjoyed.

Red light, strobes, darkness and instrumental music by Nine Inch Nails set the scene for Jack Ziesing’s work Goblin Market, with the senior dancers clad in black with textured black gilets. Horror movies, the dark side of Spiderman, creeping black ooze, and an army of evil facing off against a young superhero were conjured up as dancers slink across the stage, morphing, marching and transforming in bursts of movement and static. One of the dancers performed a walking backbend which was impressive and the long, sharp black fingernails worn by the dancers were fun.

Ziesing’s second piece, The Between, with dancers in neutral coloured costumes and lit with yellow lighting required a reference to the program to understand that this piece was about being one’s authentic self. This was the most abstract of the works, where the dancers were asked to think about identity and existential questions such as Who am I when I’m not playing a character? to help inform the work. This was mostly danced in pairings, with short bursts of movement.

Magic Mirror by Olivia Wikner was appealingly lit and costumed, with all dancers in a combination of black and white. The style of dance was balletic and graceful and referenced classic Disney animations and fairytales and characters Snow White and Evil Queens.

Like Water, created by Alice Lee Holland also had pretty costumes and lighting, with the dancers wearing shimmery pinafores. Set to calm music including harp and concluding with drumming, the fluid, graceful choreography called to mind meditative movements of martial arts and movies like House of Flying Daggers but a check of the notes explained this piece was based on characters including Yoda, Master Oogway (from Kung Fu Panda) and Mr Miyagi.

There appeared to be many new dancers in this year’s Chaos Project. The dancers were given moments to showcase individual skills and overall the choreography focused very much on hand movements, such as utilising apples, and continued thematically and on sweeping or dramatic arm movements and poses.

The finale saw a flurry of dancers fill the stage as the lyrics Rescue Me played out, allowing the girls to play the damsel in distress (albeit very light-hearted distress), followed by some temporary choking on apples and a humorous conclusion that might have the crew still searching for a few prop apples after the show.