Immersive contemporary dance with a few twists and surprises on the big stage at ZOO Southside, a high profile venue for contemporary dance.
Theme of continued movement, and extreme physicality. With seating on the stage and three performers lying about, the show begins as a sequence of independent compulsive movements from the dancers. Much repetition. Movement gaining energy. The dynamic is one of awakening, or, once again, of a life form pushing itself free from an invisible membrane.
The movement is all jerks, twitches, and lunges. A mad puppeteer pulling the strings behind the scenes. After desperate pushing and sweat building, some sort of tortured gait is gained and the trio come together for a brief unity. A game of "Do as I Do" follows as they canter about the rows of audience seats scattered about the stage.
Next up, the performers simultaneously break through their brief unity, and the fourth wall. Suddenly audience members are pulled into the free play. Various levels of enthusiasm in participation, from the reserved with their drinks to the fully engaged hard core dance fans.
We play a peculiar variant of musical chairs to the tune of some electronic industrial beats. Minimal sound, but catchy beats. Clean machine.
A space is cleared in the middle of the stage, with the audience now on the edges of it. Feels oddly natural to be watching from the side of the stage.
The show evolves into an instruction set sequence for the three dancers, identified by the randomly selected reader, who amazingly doesn't get confused with the dancer names one bit! The instructions are unusual, to the tune of "X: put all of Ys fingers in his mouth" and "Z: slap Y's face with his hand."
Once done with the instructions, there's a peculiar fan service moment, where one of the dancers is stripped to his underpants, and his musculature is exposed to the somewhat interested audience.
Final solo piece then follows, compulsive repetition of a single twisting movement. Powerful stuff. Great golden spots highlighting the statuesque form. We then circle around, all of us on stage. Close to the living statue, gone in the blink of an eye. Some closing words to round things off.
Monday worship in the body beautiful. Somehow artificial, and a bit arbitrary. Is there more to dance that frantically breaking a sweat?
Strange musical games for dance fans.