Cross-disciplinary collaboration is the high stakes poker of the art world, where immense risk and reward come hand in hand. Such is the case with IN-I, a daring new work co-directed and performed by the celebrated French actress Juliette Binoche (The English Patient, Chocolat) and Akram Khan, the acclaimed London-based choreographer, alongside set-design by the Turner Prize winning sculptor Anish Kapoor. The bold (and rather lofty) mission of the piece is to explore ‘all the idioms of love' through the many idioms of performance. Kapoor's simple set consists of a single towering block that slides up and down the stage, keeping the focus on the spatial relations of bodies rather than architecture. And focus we do, as Binoche and Khan chase, grope and beat one another in an ever-mutating kaleidoscope of mediums. With little warning, an interpretive dance crumbles into a profane shouting match; a balletic solo veers into tragic soliloquy. Such combinations are clearly intended to increase the range of expression, but the star pair fail to find a common language for their respective talents. The result is a see-saw of extremes, in which Binoche appears clumsy next to Khan's fluidity, and Khan self-conscious before Binoche's acting prowess. Though individual moments capture our attention, there is no through line to be found - logical or emotional - as if the two performers were still searching for the show's arc. Unsurprisingly, IN-I is at its stunning best when it hovers on the delicate border between drama and dance. In this space emotional potency and fluid grace are free to mingle, and the simple act of an embrace becomes poetry in motion. MS

The worlds of pop and opera could not be further apart on the musical spectrum, and that is precisely the point of this new theatrical spectacle conceived by French writer/film/theatre director Muriel Teodori and Steve Nieve, Elvis Costello's pianist and music director. This contemporary opera juxtaposes the raw, untrained voices of male stars from rock and jazz against the technical prowess of female divas from the international opera scene. Sting and Elvis Costello join forces onstage as the ‘profane voices' opposite ‘the sacred voices' of Marie-Ange Todorovitch and Sylvia Schwartz. Sting portrays a blue-collar worker named Dionysus - the Greek god of wine and the patron deity of theater - who falls in love with opera via an enchanting voice he hears from the steps of the opera house. The bilingual French/ English production tracks Dionysus while he passes the night waiting to meet the young girl who is singing and is visited by three ghosts of opera's past - Carmen, Madame Butterfly and Norma. The subtitle of the piece, A Work About Unlikely Encounters, speaks of the project's efforts to blend the sacred and profane at every level, mixing genres, classes, artists, and language. Above all, it is testament and tribute to the power and beauty of the human voice. MS & JF