Skip to main content
Gifts from The Morning Star
Papyllon
Resonant interpretation of butterfly's struggle for survival
TECHNICALLY IMPRESSIVE: Ella Mesma

THE coronavirus has had a particularly disastrous effect on dance, which is normally dependent on close bodily contact between dancers and on interaction with a live audience.

Digital works are seeking to fill the void by tailoring their choreography to suit creative filming techniques and the Ella Mesma Dance Company’s Papyllon is one such.

Based on the butterfly’s life cycle as a means to “interrogate identity, privilege and imposter syndrome,” Ella Mesma uses long aerial silks as her only props and wears an unpretentious flesh-coloured leotard which echoes her creamy mixed-race skin tones,

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
James Boswell, Two studies of a man with a chain through his
Exhibition Review / 7 November 2024
7 November 2024
CHRISTINE LINDEY welcomes a fascinating survey of the work of the communist and socialist artists who founded the AIA in the 1930s
Gabriele Münter, Portrait of Marianne von Werefkin, 1909; L
Exhibition review / 28 June 2024
28 June 2024
CHRISTINE LINDEY guides us through the vivid expressionism of a significant but apolitical group of pre WWI artists in Germany
(L-R) Joshua Reynolds’ Portrait of George, Prince of Wales
Exhibition review / 7 March 2024
7 March 2024
CHRISTINE LINDEY salutes an outstanding exhibition imbued with a sense of national guilt
(L) Synchromy with F.B. - General of hot desire (1968-69); (
Exhibition Review / 22 November 2023
22 November 2023
CHRISTINE LINDEY surveys the cosmopolitan, enigmatic compositions of an idiosyncratic artist whose work speaks of mystery and exile
Similar stories
flam
Dance / 30 May 2025
30 May 2025

PETER MASON is wowed (and a little baffled) by the undeniably ballet-like grace of flamenco

Hania Rani
Culture / 8 April 2025
8 April 2025
WILL STONE is impressed by Hania Rani who is already making a name for herself in the male-dominated world of modern classical music
TOMORROW'S WARRIOR: Nubya Garcia
Live Music Review / 19 March 2025
19 March 2025
GEORGE FOGARTY is mesmerised by the messages made when jazz is played by people who grew up steeped in jungle and hip-hop
SENSUAL ENLIGHTENMENT: Teige Bisnought and Dylan Springer in
Follow the Movement / 18 March 2025
18 March 2025
MATTHEW HAWKINS appreciates an interpretation in dance of James Baldwin’s landmark novel of doomed homosexual desire