Friday 5 May 2017

Vague and Hungover Thoughts on the dance ecosystem

1.
It is too hot to work. Last night, in a performance, a woman did a wee-wee on the stage. This isn't a metaphor. Nor was the time it took for another woman to crawl naked across the room. Sometimes, it is only when I type out the synopsis that I realise how close experimental performance can be to an evening at a particularly unpleasant sex club.

2.
The programme at Dance International Glasgow seems to be divided into two strands. There's the experimental work, usually in the first evening slot, that is probably more enjoyable for other artists, a series of interim reports from performers on their latest zany ideas. It's impossible to talk of 'enjoying' many of these. I doubt that is the point, anyway and, in my role as a consumer reporter, I am obliged to warn off the casual theatre-goer. Unless they especially want to observe acts of endurance, extremely minimalist choreography or, for the specialist, somebody having a piss. 

If you are that sort of consumer, I'm not going to judge. 

3. 
Here are some words. These are used to fill up the page. You thought this was a review, but actually: nope. It's just words. Why are you insisting on meaning? It's a critique in progress. It's an examination of the nature of language. It's more about the writer's experience than the readers. I am demanding the same patience that the artist demands. There are words. You've seen them before. But not like this. Not like this.

4.
Without the experimental work, the entire ecosystem of dance would collapse. More crowd pleasing works, like The Happiness Project, depend on artists exploring new movement vocabularies, and these explorations need an audience. The conversations between artists feed the choreographic process. 

5.
I've got nothing. 

No comments :

Post a Comment