We Should Have Never Walked on the Moon: Inside Rambert and (LA)HORDE’s Immersive Takeover of the Southbank Centre

This September, the Southbank Centre becomes a stage without borders as Rambert and BALLET NATIONAL DE MARSEILLE, under the direction of (LA)HORDE, present We Should Have Never Walked on the Moon. Spread across the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, and unexpected corners of the site, the installation invites audiences to wander and piece together their own experience through dance, sound, and digital works.

We Should Have Never Walked on the Moon

Aaron Wright, Head of Performance and Dance at the Southbank Centre, explains why the venue was ideal for such an ambitious project: “We have an incredible, iconic building, with a 75 year history. To site such an ambitious project in such a space felt like the perfect pairing. As well as seeing the incredible dance, people also get to go on a journey around the site, likely seeing areas they've never seen before”

The roaming nature of the performance, he adds, transforms the way audiences engage: “It's quite liberating! I think some people worry about getting stuck in a seat, in something they're not going to enjoy for an hour (or longer) whereas this gives audiences the agency to engage with things on their own terms. They're free to wander, and spend as much or as little time as they like with the pieces, and if they don't like one, then they can move on to find something they do like.”

Wright also situates the project within a wider shift in audience behaviour: “I think audiences are inherently curious and always interested in seeing new ideas and having new experiences. People spend so much time online, they need an antidote to this, to come together with other people and be a part of something - feel a part of something. Theatre and dance offers something that you simply cannot get online, so I think it's only going to continue to rise in popularity.’’

Originally conceived by (LA)HORDE, the project takes on new dimensions through Rambert’s involvement at the moment of its centenary. For Artistic Director Benoit Swan Pouffer, the work is not about reclaiming the past but about exploring what dance can mean today. “It’s about the body and how powerful the body is, how it communicates internationally without words,” he tells New Wave.

Rather than following theatre’s familiar patterns of programmes and intervals, the installation offers freedom: audiences move at their own pace and decide how close they want to be to the performers. Behind this apparent spontaneity sits meticulous planning, balancing stillness with intensity and weaving together both companies’ histories through movement and costume.

For Pouffer, the installation overall offers a space where each emotional moment is personal and unique, with audiences simply allowed to be present with the experience as it unfolds. New Wave was lucky enough to meet with Pouffer to walk us through the ideas, challenges, and moments of inspiration that brought this immersive Southbank takeover to life.

We Should Have Never Walked on the Moon. Image Credit: Theo Giacometti 

This project We Should Have Never Walked on the Moon began with (LA)HORDE but now expands through your collaboration with Rambert. What does your contribution bring to the piece, and how does it change or evolve the work?

Whilst We Should Have Never Walked on the Moon is not my work, and it was staged previously by (LA)HORDE, what is different is that we at Rambert are collaborating with (LA)HORDE at a time when Rambert is turning 100 years old next year. It’s an installation where two iconic organisations are collaborating together in the truest sense and in honour of this, I am also creating new pieces for the occasion. This installation gives power to the audience as it’s set all over the South Bank in a full site takeover, allowing the audience to create their own journeys which is interesting in itself. I’ve done installations before when I lived in New York, but this one is huge - almost on steroids!

Although the title originates with (LA)HORDE, what core ideas guided your approach in staging this work, and how do you want audiences to connect with it on a physical, lived level?

I am cautious about commenting on the title as it is not my original work, but what I can say and what I realised whilst staging this piece was that it is about the body and how powerful the body is and how internationally communicative the body is. We don’t have to speak the same language nor do we have to live in the same city but we all live within the body and this body has expressions and it communicates. I think it’s important we allow the audience to feel something real in the age of the Internet, particularly as we now doubt the things that we see online on our phones. Our attention span is shorter but an event like this brings us to the core of what is life. Here we can-not lie and we can-not fake anything with filters or even distance. Particularly as the company is now turning 100, it is important to do this kind of work to give the audience a very visceral and lived experience of dance. 

Picking up on the performance being so roaming and site-wide, how does breaking the traditional barriers of audience in chairs and performers on stage change the relationships between audience and performers, does this change the energy of the work at all also? 

This barrier-breaking in the form of installation comes from the 60s and 70s, so I am hesitant to say think of it as something we’ve reinvented, but we are reimagining it through this collaboration. I strongly resonate with the importance of the audience roaming and choosing their own journey which I think counters a lot of artistic experiences where everything is mostly dictated - you see a show, you get your programme, you sit in your seat, you have an interval - everything is almost always codified. The collaboration between these two organisations makes it different in giving more of a sense of freedom to the audience. Ironically, in creating this freedom there is a lot of detailed planning and logistics to make sure that the audience doesn’t feel frustrated and that we provide them with as many choices as possible. 

Because this is a production which has to blend a lot of different kinds of creative thinking, in its cinematic staging and its more intricate logistical problems, how do you go about balancing these so one does not overshadow the other, and what are the challenges involved in this balancing act? 

I would say firstly it is definitely a fine balance, particularly because we are working with different types of installations - some which move and some which are dense excerpts full of movements.We are also balancing the heritage of both these dance companies, where we have pulled out costumes from the past to reflect the history of Rambert and (LA)HORDE. This, I feel, is a type of balance in itself. Then there is balancing different types of audiences. For example, some audiences might stay hours watching something that doesn’t move. We can never really anticipate what the audience is going to decide they want to see, so it is more about balancing the landscape of the performance as a whole. Even then, however, your journey through the piece is going to be what you decide it to be. 

In building these different journeys that the audience takes, did you want audiences to walk away with a cohesive narrative experience or did you lean more towards giving the audience as many choices as possible and letting them decide entirely their perspective on the piece?

Definitely the latter, there is no story-telling here, but experiences. That is what motivates me and is something that is central to the multifaceted way we work at Rambert. For example, we did Peaky Blinders last week for two weeks and now we are doing a site specific installation in collaboration with (LA)HORDE. Letting go of narrative also challenges my dancers to go against what they traditionally do on the stage. So, to return back to the question, there was not much thinking about the story compared to thinking about the infinite information that bodies can communicate and express, which gives the audience as many choices as possible in what they experience in this installation. 

We Should Have Never Walked on the Moon. Image Credit: Thierry Hauswald 

The piece is obviously exploring the body in what some might deem the ‘post-internet age’, and in allowing the body to have these infinite communicative agency, how did you translate this into movement without what audiences experience feeling too literal when they are so close to these bodies? 

The first thing we do in dance is work with bodies, but the way you will experience it could be 360 - meaning, there is no front. What you are watching is not the same as a screen or a stage as you have the choice to decide which angle you observe from. I’ve created pieces which look at the relationship with one human being to another in how they interact with each-other throughout the years. Part of the reason I want to create choices is to create the option to experience something that is in front of you away from the screen. 

In creating this, due to it being such a collaborative effort between Rambert and (LA)HORDE, was there a need to cut through any of the historical weight of these companies, and different choreographing voices? 

You know when we started this project there was not LA(HORDE) and Rambert, it really was a fusion of the two companies. We don’t want to dismiss the individual pasts of these companies, on the contrary we embraced each-other’s pasts so much that we became one. It might sound very cheesy but our goal in this collaboration is to give the audience a different and special experience. Of course we are extremely proud of what we have done in the past but it is really the future that excites us. 

Do you see this project as a hopeful future of what bodies can represent within dance and within art, is this the start of something broader?

I think we're trying to do something different but I will not have the pretension to say it's the start of a new era! It comes down to the simple fact that we wanted to create a different experience. With the vehicle of a dance company like Rambert which takes on multiple different projects, we are able to see things pretty similar to other organisations allowing us to create something which is different. 

This installation is staged in such an iconic London location, and your career has been shaped by an international perspective. When you create, is that global outlook something you always bring into the work, or is it more intentional when a piece is tied to a site as significant as this?

Well, I was raised in Paris and spent 25 years in New York and I'm now here. I don't go into creating a work and say this is going to be international, I say more that this is going to be what I want to do and what I think it should be, because of my experiences internationally. And again, working in my business where the body is central, it becomes international right away because like I said earlier, earlier, we all possess a body and any communication through a body becomes international because of this fact. 

In using bodies to communicate, do you view the body as an unspoken language in itself? 

Yes, in fact the body is the only language that we like that we can communicate with, not just in dance but in other artistic genres like film and theatre as we all  possess a body and I do think we can all relate to the experiences of other bodies too. 

We Should Have Never Walked on the Moon. Image Credit: Amaury Cornu

In creating these unspoken languages and new channels of communication via our bodies, there’s been a growing appetite for large-scale, site-specific performances - even within the Southbank Centre’s own programme. What is the reason as to why audiences are craving this kind of experience and why artistic are drawn to these kinds of projects? 

For me personally, I was always drawn to different formats of dance and how you can experience dance, and that comes from the early 2000s when I was living in New York. So I've been involved in many of these kinds of projects. But I do think this kind of specific audience craving comes from what I said earlier: that nowadays we don’t know what’s real, and we don’t what has been altered when it is presented to us through technology. These specific immersive experiences cut through this, however as there is no filter because live up-close performances can’t have one. I think this is why live performance is so important nowadays as it enables audiences to have a kind of experience which they don’t doubt the reality of and don’t doubt that what they’ve seen or what they’ve felt is real.  

Do you feel driven then, to eliminate ambiguity and distance between the audience and the performers to create a more ‘authentic’ experience overall? 

I will say, I am cutting the distance between the audience and the performer in this installation as there is no proscenium, stage, or screen involved in viewing this piece. You are much more immersed as you decide how close you are going to and thereby become closer to the performers and the piece. 

Within these ideas about closeness, do you find yourself striving for multiple kinds of closeness and intimacy between audience and performer - are you balancing emotional proximity with physical proximity when you are crafting this experience? 

When we work, we do it for the audience. I am not, however, trying to dictate how audiences should feel when experiencing work that I’ve created nor can I ever dictate what they will feel - I am hoping only that they feel something.  

Are there any emotions you hope you conjure in audiences when coming to see this installation? 

Like I said earlier, I never want to dictate how an audience must feel and I want to firstly say that each person is entitled to feel any feeling they like. But, I am hoping that they find excitement and surprise from this piece. In my eyes, this performance is like a bubble of time that has been inserted into your daily life. This bubble to me is a space where you are able to dream, where you are able to cry, and you are able to laugh - all which I consider very real and pure emotions. 

We Should Have Never Walked on the Moon. Image Credit: Theo Giacometti 

Is there a future that you would hope to create through this piece, how do you envision the life of this installation after the audience has seen it and after it has been created?

I hope we encourage others to do these kinds of installations and experiences as well as it is challenging but also very rewarding and I want to do more of these kinds of projects. Installations like these gives us an opportunity to show people who may not consider themselves fans of dance that it is ok to not know it all when going to see dance. There is this sense of elitism from the dance business which I’m trying to fight because I think dance comes from the people and it needs to be delivered back to the people. 

Ultimately, is this your way of delivering dance back to the people? 

It is definitely one of our ways, but we have many ways that aren't shown here, like what we did with Peaky Blinders. I have seen it first hand where we had more than 200,000 people go to this show who had never seen a dance show and never been to a theatre. Giving these people an opportunity to see dance is very much our mission statement here at home. 

Beyond the experience itself, the project also highlights the Southbank Centre’s commitment to pushing the boundaries of dance and performance in London. For Aaron Wright, We Should Have Never Walked on the Moon ultimately demonstrates the Centre’s ongoing role in shaping London’s dance scene. “We’re excited to introduce major international names while supporting the next generation of British artists through our new KUNSTY series. We also have more immersive takeover projects in the works, following the success of Marina Abramovic’s takeover in 2023.”

The installation presents a definitive challenge to expectations of what dance can be, allowing audiences to roam, choose their encounters, and feel the shared energy of live performance. Every moment invites discovery and connection, reminding audiences why theatre which is live, communal, and unpredictable remains an essential space for human experience.

We Should Have Never Walked on the Moon. Image Credit: Thierry Hauswald

We Should Have Never Walked on the Moon premieres on September 3rd, running until September 6th at The Southbank Centre.