With IB exams close at hand now, and GCSEs looming ever closer, it was Idle Motion to the rescue it would seem, as they provided a wonderfully refreshing, beautifully executed performance of The Vanishing Horizon.

In this sweet melee of visual effects and innovative choreography, the audience was guided through the centuries of audacious aviatrixes, (whose feats, though perhaps unsung, proved to be among the most daring, intrepid and sensational of the modern era.) It was indeed poignant then that these incredible journeys should be juxtaposed with the very personal, emotional discovery of Anna, who travels to South Africa in search of some truths about her long-lost grandmother. Upon Anna’s journey then, the audience is not struck merely by the exhilaration, beauty and occasional strife of air travel; but by the legacy of generations of pioneers, whose spirits, it would seem, were so unbridled by the social convention of “settling down” that they took to the skies instead.

All this, combined with the stunning ingenuity involved in the use of props, the seemingly effortless transition between recording studios and airport lounges by the mere opening and closing of suitcases and the extraordinary lighting effects, left the audience in a state of child-like excitement, as we watched the airplanes, flying overhead.

Jake Spence