Hidden – Leeds Playhouse

Conceiver and Director: Kevin Finnan

Motionhouse’s Hidden combines fluid acrobatic spectacle with projected cityscapes and constantly reconstructed sets (designed by Simon Dormon) to explore a city and society at its most restless.

In the first act, the audience swoops through the projected London scenes (created by Logela Multimedia), meeting a few recognisable archetypes in their natural habitats – an anxious commuter on the street, an amorous couple in their apartment, a moody teenager in a park, a self-contained gamer in his bedroom. The costumes (designed and created by Cathy Eddolls) are vibrant and everyday, leaning into the differences between these characters. Introduced in isolation, the cast collide where you might expect – the Underground – in the first flash of acrobatic daring.

The blink-and-you’ll-miss-it athleticism is impressive in its necessary precision and performative ease. The strong (in the literal and technical sense) cast of seven (who are co-credited in the choreography with Kevin Finnan and Daniel Massarella) are a confident collective ‘safe pair of hands’, allowing the audience to enjoy the spectacle, while maintaining the dramatic tension of the circus work.

The choreography then disperses into more abstract sequences, signaled by the use of static and then blue/black lighting in the projection, playing with the anxiety of night time spaces. A duet with the between dancers Llewlyn Brown and Dylan Davies using a bar of light explores vulnerabilities exposed with keen tenderness. Dancers Beth Pattison and Alex Macnab are then trapped between sheets of cellophane in the scaffolding of the set itself, as the rest of the ensemble shifts it to new configurations. It creates many arresting images as they struggle and succeed in freeing themselves and each other.

The small gestures, defined focus and clean motifs have a striking impact. Thumbs drawn down from lips in quiet defiance and dancers standing still, high atop sets, staring out to the audience, being a couple of memorable details. The finesse of the transitions between circus, floor work, hip hop isolations and contemporary dance should not go unnoticed.

Slowing and clarifying the choreography gives some of the imagery needed breathing room, and the audience time to absorb it. This is particularly well utilised in some of the carefully controlled balance work late in the first act, as the ensemble flows through three levels of set. Revealing the scaffolding of the set also allows the added influences of parkour and high bar gymnastics to be more foregrounded in the movement vocabulary.

But the set transformations are not complete yet, as grey mats that function as floors, walls and roofs at different moments are added. The set use is less convincing in the moments of projected nostalgic family photos but highly effective in the creation of a roof on which to climb up and slide down at the close of act one.

This set is then fixed in place for act two, with the ‘wall’ facing the audience, tilted at what feels like about an 80 degree angle from the ground. It will no longer move, with the dancers themselves providing the geometric potential, becoming grey clothed human architecture.

This is where it all clicks into place. As the dancers are spotlighted against the wall their movements feel increasingly surreal, angled in a way that is defiant of gravity. As they curl and ground their bodies to this structure, inching to the base and then leapfrogging to the top, the vertigo builds until bodies are once more stacked on shoulders, thrown off ‘roofs’, caught mid somersault and held aloft one-handed. It’s bold, breathtaking stuff, particularly when it becomes apparent that all ensemble members ‘fly’ and catch throughout.

Overall, there is a clear sense of trust, connection and ownership between the dancers as a company, especially in the second act. This is also the emotional core of Hidden – trust allows us to throw ourselves into the unknown and understand that we will be caught. Crucially, we expect to catch others when they fall too. Hidden expresses that in this expectation and exchange of support, we find hope.

Runs until 7 March 2026