17c at BAM on Saturday night involved significantly more reading (of select text from a 17th century diary) than dancing (which lasted only a few minutes).
The show made heavy of multimedia engagement, including presentation (e.g., six large LCD displays on either side of the stage, a large projector display onto the stage) as well as live streaming (e.g., overhead and point-of-view cameras).
However, the additional pixels didn’t add much to the production, were distracting at best, and in a few cases, undermined the live performance.
For example, displaying the text “they are dancing about their relationship” on the six large LCD screens as a husband and wife danced… (1) felt distracting; (2) made me wonder if the dancing was so empty that it must be supplemented by text to explicitly describe what the dancing meant; (3) took away my ability to interpret the dance; and (4) as a result, made the dancing feel completely empty.