Live Review: Esperanza Spalding

Though not intended for the Vivid stage, Esperanza Spalding's Emily's D+Evolution tour (of the 2016 release of the same name) slots perfectly into a line-up of full of artists testing the limits of theatricality and live music.

Spalding takes the stage in a black and white tent, her head poking out the top like a poorly judged Barbie cake in an afro to kick off an evening of riffed on selections from D+Evolution. As the crescendo to the second track builds, Spalding turns her back on the audience and deconstructs herself to re-emerge in white denim, a gold fairytale crown, thick white plastic frames and braids. The double bass that used to nest in her elbow is replaced by an electric one that clips to a belt on her waist. Spalding sets the joyous and liberated play of D+Evolution firmly in a place that doesn't quite look like here: half of her stage is bathed in the yellow, the other in red, and as she moves through them she smears herself with paint, the inverted tent dress sits up the back and looks like a silver princess castle, and then Spalding herself moves with an endlessly fluid playfulness. Even on the highest notes and most complicated scats, Spalding's body is in character.

The drama carries into the fabric of the performance too, the songs are discrete vignettes, each one calling for its own physicality, its own props, its own arrangement and even its own drama. At one point, a supporting singer proposes to Spalding and is rejected as she climbs a step ladder.

Emily's D+Evolution overflows with invention, curiosity and an intoxicating childish dreaminess. Spalding may have climbed down on stage, but right now she is climbing a seemingly endless ladder to invention.