Mad Cyril Likes Men

Afta a bit ov business went dahn, I fort I betta lie low for a bit, an nipped orf to France. Fer the sake of the insurance, I took in a coupla shows over there, keepin the profile on the low-dahn.

Fer the sake of the Wee Man, there's one abaht masculine identity. 

I doan have much truck wiv all this dance that is abaht being a man: I fink havin a willy is pretty much wat is all abaht. Still, it's Belgian innit, I'll give it a taste.

See, I reckon is the first fin that male dancers do when they get a bit of choreographic action. All them years gettin the piss extracted fer wearing tights, they jus gotta show orf that they're real men. So we get a bunch ov fancy acrobatics, bit ov angst, ow ard it is being a bloke. Neva mind the rest ov the world couldn't give a toss. Three fousand years of patriarchy has given us quite enuff of masculine featre (Amlet, Orestes, need I go on).

Still, it's Belgian, innit?

Is a bit ard workin aht wat Chicks Fer Money, Nothing Fer Free as to do wiv the Dire Straits' numba it mentions: it's five geezas avin a laff on stage, mostly. Sometimes they come orf the stage, like skidding in pools of beer an shavin foam, but when these geezas wanna rock, they go wiv the AC/DC, a bit ov propa rock'n'roll. And they do the showin orf, only, this ain't some tricks to impress the chicks. They have a propa go at each ovva, til one ov em ends up with a nasty kick in the nuts. They calm dahn afta that. 

See, what this piece does is take the worst aspects of the average geeza - the showin off in front of yer mates, the drinkin, the fightin, the husslin for position - and make it all charming, like. Five fellas havin a piss up and a slap up turns inta a bit of fun, and not so fuckin scary.

Even a geeza like me gets a bit worried when ee sees five saucy lads carryin on, but instead of em being all hardcore, they come across like kids. Playful, bit insecure, not keen on the old intimacy but able to do it if ya put em in a box first. 

That's the genius of this Belgian stuff. Is less predictable. 

And there were big laffs when the two ov em came out all in shaving foam and skidded into the audience, or when they bunged beer all over the shop... or as they put it





Zes jongens, mannen, komen samen in de Krakeling. Om hun verhaal te vertellen smijten ze hun lichaam in de strijd. Tegen elkaar en voor elkaar, tot het bittere einde. Ze hebben het over geld, seks en macht. Over jongensdromen en het echte leven.

Chicks is een oefening in geluk. Een zoektocht naar een ideale wereld waar alles kan en niets schijn lijkt. Danstheater, bewegingstheater of fysieke voorstelling, het is in elk geval een uitputtende veldslag waarin taal pas bovendrijft als de zes lichamen leeg zijn, moegestreden

It's going to get worse and worse and worse, my friend

Thank God somebody walked out of Tramway's triple bill. I was starting to worry that Tim Nunn's programming had become respectable - sell-out shows, Michael Clark's new work getting respect both as a community project and an aesthetic experience - but the familiar sound of a disgruntled audience member stomping down the stairs to the exit a few minutes before the end reassured me that it still has that special edge.

I am always going to be prejudiced for Tramway: I learnt about performance there during the early years of this century, when the programme was dominated by Belgian choreography and New Territories took up residence in the spring, and these days, I teach the Young Critics class there. It has an international reputation - doing research on the venue's past, I found that it had more respect in Europe than in Scotland, although there are dedicated souls who still whisper excitedly of performances seen in its heyday: Les Ballets C de la B, Victoria, Peter Brook...

It's going to get worse and worse and worse, my friend - departing audience members notwithstanding - had all the signifiers of great Tramway programming. Soloist and choreographer Lisbeth Gruwez comes from Belgium, and danced with Ultima Vez, Jan Fabre, C de la B and Needcompany, who have all stormed the Southside in the last decade. Stringent, intelligent, frustrated and articulate, it strips theatre back to the disciplined body moving to and against a soundtrack: the lighting a single rectangle of white, the music a symphony of cut-up and remixed voices and compositions - triumphantly emerging into Arvo Part's Tabula Rasa.

The magic of Tramway is to provide, simultaneously, a space that is intimate and epic. Isolated in her tiny square, Gruwez is dwarfed by the majesty of the Brook Wall (it looms behind her, spectacular and sinister in the darkness) but close enough to the audience that her slightest gesture is clear and immediate. Working with a variety of different systems - bits of ballet, more contemporary styles, a trace of street - Gruwez responds to the cut up of Jimmy Swaggert's emotional sermons with a dance that becomes increasingly desperate and deconstructed.