Robot, Barbican Theatre, London, review: The audience gasps in dismay when it falls over, and laughs fondly when it wiggles its fingers, asking to be lifted

Mechanical dancing: the stars of Blanca Li Dance Company’s Robot are the little dancing props, tiny humanoid robots that we see learning moves, striving to get the steps right. In one sequence, five of the robots dance together; one looks around plaintively when it can’t get the steps right.

Based in France, choreographer Blanca Li has worked with hip-hop companies, with Pedro Almodóvar and Beyoncé. In this show, she collaborates with Japanese art group Maywa Denki, who create automated musical instruments, and Aldebaran Robotics, creators of the tiny Nao robot. The show has some padding, particularly for the human dancers, but there’s some wonderful invention here.

Robot opens with a single dancer, standing centre-stage, video projections lighting up and transforming his body. Charles Carcopino’s video turns him into a series of anatomical pictures: skeletal, muscular and vascular systems glowing over real flesh. As the flickering images speed up, we start to see cyborg bodies, the dancer transformed into robots – with echoes of famous movie images, such as the robot from Metropolis or C-3PO from Star Wars.

Eight dancers pose like mannequins, then bend and fold, movements emphasising the workings of the body. Li’s company move with emphatic, muscular force, weighted and precise.

The robots creep in at the edges. One dancer crosses the stage with a broom, followed by a moving pedal bin, flapping its lid as it paddles in his wake. The Maywa Denki instruments are brought on with some ceremony, complicated sculptural objects that echo violins and voices; one looks like a giant flower, with a xylophone chime on each petal.

One dancer performs with the Nao robot, a toddler-sized, highly articulate robot that responds to him, copying his moves. It’s immediately endearing; the audience gasps in dismay when it falls over, and laughs fondly when it wiggles its fingers, asking to be lifted.

As the little robot learns steps, it gets more ambitious, echoing ballet poses, winning a round of applause for its balances. A group dance for robots is followed by a spotlit star moment for a soloist, dressed in sequins and a tiny feather boa, dancing to “Besame mucho”.

At 90 minutes, Robot is too long. There are some weak sequences for the human dancers, who wiggle under more projections, pretend to manipulate each other with remote controls or exchange clichéd flirtations with the robots. The charm of this show is when humans and robots take each other very seriously.