Man Dance

I've always been a little suspicious of choreographic attempts to define masculinity. They have become very popular in the last few years - the natural reaction, perhaps, of the dancer's ambiguity about their masculinity against more stereotypical male roles, like the sportsman. Personally, I got over any ideas that dancers weren't tough guys the first time I saw the Bolshoi Ballet, and read about Baryshinkov's sexual conquests.

There's inevitably plenty of fighting and peacocking, and the only reason that both The Chinaski Sessions and 12 Dancers don't annoy me beyond measure is that they both have good excuses for taking the male as subject. Between them, the two pieces employed most of the male dancers associated with Scotland and although there are those predictable play-fights (yes, you can lift each other. Well done), they manage to go a little deeper.

The Chinaski Sessions is choreographed by a woman, Kylie Walters, which at least means that this is an outsider's view of masculinity. It uses the avatar of Charles Bukowski to see whether all that pizza-eating, jockeying for position and showing off can be creative. The interaction between the five dancers, including Jack Webb, exhibiting a genuine charisma away from his solo pieces and pretend drunk lout Michael Sherin, and the band I Love Sarah is frequently boorish and thuggish but the climax, which pictures a lads' night out in hideous detail, reveals Walter's talent for exposing character through deft, precise movements.

12 Dancers is the result of Andy Howitt's campaign to bring together a gang of male dancers who represent the various stages of the dancer's career. He is not afraid to pull the older guys on stage - Ian Spink has been better known as a choreographer for the past thirty years, and Peter Royston, having once been with Scottish Ballet, has moved into dance development in Perth. The costumes - suits, these boys are a jury and in their court-room best - add to the cast's gravitas. It's a shock when Allan Irvine busts a few b-boy moves.

Despite the inevitable ruckus, which does look a bit like a primary school lunch-break, 12 Dancers does a good job of using the various scenes to illustrate conflict through dance without it turning into hand-bags at dawn. Telling the classic story about that one time the jury had its mind changed by one man, the narrative is simple and direct. The men argue, through dance, and eventually agree that the defendant is not guilty.

Howitt's ambitious choreography pulls together the various techniques of his 12 men. Daniel Aing brings Capoeira from Marseilles, Malcolm Shields seems to come from a more physical theatre place. Unsurprisingly, Matthew Hawkins is a constant presence, his balletic precision married to an arch enthusiasm. As the piece develops, the different techniques are thrust cheek by jowl and are merged into something approaching an integrated style. If the younger dancers tend to be more emphatic and showy, the seriousness of the older men lends the performance weight.

Masculinity is only half of the story - where Walters adds the idea of creativity, Howitt slams in justice. The narrative is simple enough not to get lost- despite it not always being clear who is arguing for what - and the spectacle of 12 skilled dancers piling around the stark set is frequently comic or impressive. Perhaps more than the content, or even the attempt to juxtapose different dance styles, 12 Dancers is a spectacle, and a one stop guide to Scotland's male dance community.

Except for Tony Mills, who is in Russia. And the cast of The Chinaski Sessions. And Tommy Small and Tom Pritchard, who are doing their show on Friday. There's quite a few male dancers in Scotland.

That might explain why masculinity tends to be a topic, but I haven't seen female choreographers feed a similar need to deconstruct the feminine. True, Curious Seed did have an entry in the Fringe called The Woman Who Wants To Be Funny but that was as much about comedy as it was about gender.

I did grow up around dancers, and the thing I remember most is not how they were compromised in their masculinity, but that they had loads of women flocking to them. I think I got picked on a bit at school, but that wasn't because I got caught wearing my ballet tights. I was an irritating egg-head who liked Latin.

Top Five out of my Inbox

Frankly, it can all get a bit much. I mean, I love sitting here, watching my in-box fill up with press releases: it reminds me that I am fortunate enough to live in a country where the arts are thriving. However, I have to make hard decisions: Black T-Shirt Collection at Tramway tonight, or Philip Jeck at Pulse: Touch 30? In the meantime, here's my latest collection of happenings across Scotland.

The RSNO have just received the Diapason d'Or de l’Année for their recording of Debussy with former musical director Stéphane Denève. 

Before Denève left in May 2012, he had made the orchestra into a veritable machine for Debussy - the conductor has a real love for the composer, and his work is beautifully pitched between modernist brevity and having a good tune. 

Hopefully, he'll come back and conduct a few shows in celebration: if not, the album is entitled Stéphane Denève Conducts Debussy and is on the Chandos label.

Still on the recording tip, Radio Hour favourites A Band Called Quinn are releasing their new album on Monday. Unfortunately, they've decided to launch it at Glasgow Loves Christmas which means I can't invite their singer onto the show and flirt pathetically with her. 

ABCQ have had a busy year: when they are not reinventing the rock gig as a theatrical performance, featuring the legendary Diane Torr as a nasty business man, singer Louise has been recording with Kid Loco or they are off supporting The Beat around Scotland. Having survived the machinations of the music industry - their Biding Time (remix) chronicled the fun they had being twisted into generic glamour fodder - ABCQ have made the jump into performance art, maintaining their smart new wave sound and sly pop sensibility. 

Over on the east coast, Cobweb Theatre Company present A Night of Fairy Tales in The Black Box at Queen Margaret University on the 7th of December. It's hard enough to make the major events these days, and now student companies are plugging into my fascination with dark fantasy and cabaret style theatre. They are including a "wonky, music based adaptation of Peer Gynt" - recently a smash hit for the NTS - and choreography featuring an intoxicating women in red and a snatch from Snow White's post-adventure marital disfunction. Now that pantomime is taking over the theatres, I'm always looking for a hit of more perplexing pleasures.

If I can get to Inverness - which isn't that likely - I wouldn't mind catching Georg-ina Porteous' Over Egging the Pudding. The result of her residency in Berlin, it is described as a durational blancmange demonstration. Failing that, there is someone blowing up lots of black, star-shaped balloons in the Briggait at the moment - I'll go and find out whether it's an exhibition or just a party for Goth children after I finish this.

Closer to home, but looking towards Christmas, the Art School is hosting an outing to SWG3. It is going to take me far too long to write a sensible preview for this - I have to remember that I am trying to empty my in-box and use my blog to make up a working timetable for my non-stop life of art action. It's one of those multi-art events that young people love so much. I'll have to send Eric, I suppose.

Learning to Love the Mime

Mime must be one of the most unpopular art forms. It's up there with performance poetry - although that has a New York branch that features plenty of swearing, and hip hop has given it some street cred - and Morris dancing. The ubiquitous white-faced busker, made so popular by Marcel Marceau than brilliant radio comic and low-rent TV comedian Kenny Everett parodied him for a cheap laugh, has become a cypher for unimaginative street theatre. Hulk Hogan smacked one in the face, and Robin out of Batman electrocuted one for applause.

It doesn't matter that the Lecoq school has made clowns a little hipper at the past few Edinburgh Festivals, and that the buffoon, a kind of predatory clown, has taken the mime into darker territory. Actually, the name of Lecoq usually gets a few cheap laughs.

Never being one to buck a trend, I am going to begin my investigation into mime not by explaining the etymology of the word (it's from the Greek, meaning to copy) or connect it to the grand philosophical idea of mimesis (Plato's bugbear, the act of copying). Instead, I shall recount a tale I discovered in the Derrida for Beginners book about how a mime died.

It's the story that has everything: a mime being stupid, a connection to the mighty school of deconstruction, sexual jealousy, French literature and an example of how serious the mime can be.

So, there's this mime, right. His name is Pierrot. Being a mime, he can't satisfy his wife - maybe she wanted some dirty talk. Anyway, she goes off and has an affair. Pierrot finds out and, this being a performance, dramatically considers various ways to off her. He settles on tickling her to death.

But he's a mime, see, and this is a pantomime. He acts out his revenge fantasy, playing both himself and the victim. He alternates between tickling and being tickled. He's enjoying himself so much, miming away two parts, that he gets carried away. Then the picture of his wife comes to life and starts laughing at him. He can't stop the tickling - he's enjoying it too much. Unfortunately, it turns out that the cheeky tickle wasn't such a stupid murder weapon. It works.

Pierrot tickles himself to death.

Derrida then explains how the description of this performance by Mallarme - itself based on a booklet describing the original performance - posits a challenge to the Platonic idea of mimesis. I don't have a hope in hell of understanding that.

However, I am interested in this story because it might help me get to the basis of what mime can do, when it isn't standing outside the pound shop pretending to be stuck in a glass cage. What Pierrot is representing is impossible. God knows, I've tried to tickle myself, but I can't. And beyond that, can someone be tickled to death?

I suppose it's possible. It's a bit James Bond baddie complex, but it might happen during a BDSM session that gets out of hand.

Either way, what the mime seems to be up to is... telling a symbolic story through movement. Leaving aside Derrida's meta-readings, Pierrot's idiot drama is a fairly good allegory for the dangers of erotic obsession.

Maybe mime can be understood as a mannered system  of story-telling. Stripping away the superficial details (the white face paint, the striped shirt and funny trousers), leaving behind a movement vocabulary that can carry a narrative.

Ta-da! It's Dada...

The internet is not just for porn, after all. I just discovered a poem by Tristan Tzara, one of the early dadaists. I couldn't resist the title: Proclamation without Pretension. 

I am trying to research the origins of Visual Theatre: having decided that it probably started in Zurich, 1916, I am flicking through the excitable manifestos of the period. Admittedly, I want Visual Theatre to begin with Dada - it's a neat date to begin research (I'd already discovered that a proper historical analysis would have me starting in pre-history, or reading up on primate gesture systems), links theatre into the currents of visual art and, given the whole dada revolutionary spiel, suggests that visual theatre is part of a reaction against the staid and conformist. 

Never being one to waste some good text, I thought I'd share Tzara's Proclamation and add a few comments... the poem is in bold, my comments in italics.

Art is going to sleep for a new world to be born

"ART"-parrot word-replaced by DADA,
PLESIOSAURUS, or handkerchief

It's a nice start for the boy from Romania. Three lines in and I am already confused. I'm assuming that he is linking the idea of "art" to the status quo of the "old world" and insisting that art needs a bit of a kip to let a new world do its thing.  

The talent THAT CAN BE LEARNED makes the
poet a druggist TODAY the criticism
of balances no longer challenges with resemblances

Yes, I think I got that: the poet is a druggist, someone who either blisses out his clients with sedatives, or patches them up. I have a good friend who is a pharmacist, and I am sure that he won't be insulted if I say that he is not a medical doctor... the poet does not cure, only alleviates. 

I am deliberately ignoring that slap at "criticism" although I might misquote it later as a slogan for my own attack on existing attitudes to criticism. 
Hypertrophic painters hyperaes-
theticized and hypnotized by the hyacinths
of the hypocritical-looking muezzins

Look, I gave you the wikipedia link for the first word... I am quite enjoying Tzara's style. I do alliteration like that sometimes - usually when I am hoping that a theatre company will quote me on their posters. 

I think he is saying that painters have gotten all fat and have been praised too much by the critics ("the hypocritical-looking muezzins"). If he is, this is more interesting than I thought. Tzara is making explicit the problems of a society where artists allow critics to define their work. 

CONSOLIDATE THE HARVEST OF EX-
ACT CALCULATIONS

You are on your own there.

Hypodrome of immortal guarantees: there is
no such thing as importance there is no transparence
or appearance

I'm guessing he means hippodrome, the place where they had chariot races. Reading this is like peeling an orange - I'm throwing half of it away to get to some juicy bits. How about "there is no such thing as importance"? All is transient, the grandeur of art is just a passing moment: the nihilism arrives on time. 

MUSICIANS SMASH YOUR INSTRUMENTS
BLIND MEN take the stage

Yes, I felt like that after watching an episode of Jools Holland. Maybe, when Raydale Dower staged his Piano Drop at Tramway (a slow motion video of a piano being smashed), he was thinking of this line... and maybe he could restage it under the title 'What Billy Joel ought to do next...'

Is Tzara asking for more blues-men? Or does he mean blind men is a symbolic sense. I hate it when artists do that, use disability as a smart-arse metaphor. As it goes. Tzara, the Five Blind Boys of Alabama were the best part of 'The Gospel of Colonus' so I'd suggest that getting blind men on stage isn't all that revolutionary.
THE SYRINGE is only for my understanding. I write because it is
natural exactly the way I piss the way I'm sick

Is he shooting up? There is a slight hallucinatory tinge to his writing... Burroughs would get into this kind of disorientation of meaning and juddering of grammar, and he liked his smack. 

Actually, I think he is making an excuse for himself. All the other artists are bad, because they are unnatural, but Tzara has to write. That doesn't make it okay...
ART NEEDS AN OPERATION

Classic style slogan.

Art is a PRETENSION warmed by the
TIMIDITY of the urinary basin, the hysteria born
in THE STUDIO

Ah ha! I wonder whether he did this before or after Duchamp put his pissoir in the gallery? If before, Duchamp's cheeky found object is a commentary on this poem's opinion of art. If after... well, that's less interesting. 

We are in search of
the force that is direct pure sober
UNIQUE we are in search of NOTHING
we affirm the VITALITY of every IN-
STANT

Say it, brother. And that makes sense, pretty much.
the anti-philosophy of spontaneous acrobatics
Might need to think about that... unless he literally means that he likes people just doing acrobatics for no good reason. But - who doesn't?

At this moment I hate the man who whispers
before the intermission-eau de cologne-
sour theatre. THE JOYOUS WIND

Hang on, that just sounds like me moaning about the guy eating popcorn when I was in the cinema.

If each man says the opposite it is because he is
right

Get ready for the action of the geyser of our blood
-submarine formation of transchromatic aero-
planes, cellular metals numbered in
the flight of images

above the rules of the
and its control

BEAUTIFUL

It is not for the sawed-off imps
who still worship their navel

And for my next trick, I am going to compare this to the lyrics of a Slipknot album. 

Ambiguity (Ring @ Tramway)

Ambiguity - dontcha just hate it? Theatre criticism is supposed to be a simple affair: 250 words, kicking up with a plot summary and ending with a recommendation. Bish-bosh, and out. Simple enough, as long as the play has the moral complexity of a pantomime or Macbeth. But allow anyone involved in Shunt to write it, or give the choreographer a grant from a scientific institute, and 50 non-sexual shades of grey fill the stage.

Contemporary performance - whether it fits in with established norms of script and Shakespeare, or comes from those wild and wacky live artists who can't decide whether to be visual or performance art - thrives on ambiguity. Don't let the enduring popularity of Macbeth fool you. Shakespeare's story of patrilineal succession is so out of fashion, the only way directors can stand doing it is to subvert the meaning. When this works - as in the NTS' version starring Alan Cumming - it draws out an intriguing subtext. When it fails, I'm left wondering why paramilitary organisations are so worried about their children.

The solution is probably to obsess about the details of a particular performance: was this actor any good? Did the script have the ring of authenticity? It doesn't resolve the ambiguity, but it gets the article written. Bish-bosh and out.

Of course, this doesn't do justice to the seriousness of the art, or the potential for theatre to become part of a broader discourse. Tales of Magical Realism and Ring (both at Tramway and both, typically for the venue, slipping between genres of performance) refuse any literal representation of reality, or nice simple plot. Reducing their narratives to introductory paragraphs fails to embrace their emotional impact.

Ring's plot is relatively, and deceptively, simple. An encounter group, which decides to meet in the dark (with the inevitable potential for masturbatory shenanigans), picks on one of the members, accusing them of all sorts of murderous antics. Whether naughty Frances has actually killed, stalked or irritated anyone is never made explicit. Even better, the part of Frances, thanks to audio trickery, is played by every single audience.

From the gentle introduction, Ring inducts the audience into darkness and a group riven by petty rivalries and serious menace. Guy Dartnell, the genial host, is replaced by a chorus of voices who alternately whisper viciously, croon love songs and reassure. A fragmented journey backwards in time, perhaps finally unveiling a secret death, takes in the comic - the description of a group for chronic masturbators, some trite bickering - and the vicious, with muffled screams and at least one member of the group suddenly and violently expelled.

When narrative is this disjointed, something else has to take its place to maintain the piece's coherence. David Rosenberg uses binaural recording, giving the illusion that the events are happening around the room (in truth, the audience is wearing headphones and the actors are not present). Removing even the slightest light - Ring is experienced in complete darkness - the soundscape is heavy, threatening and intimate. The occasional sound of muffled screams, or the smash of a glass become jarring and the whispers are sensual and disturbing.

Every audience member experiences the performance alone, wrapped in sound and the dark. This stark alienation makes Frances' story personal, and the noises hovering at the edges of comprehension all the more terrifying. The encounter group's reasons for coming together are never clear and the descriptions of violence, and unpleasant sexual encounters, may be delusion or fantasy.

The power of Ring is poised on this ambiguity, between what is really happening - strangers sitting in a room, listening to the same script yet separated - and what the script presents - a series of arguments, memories and scenarios, played out by sound alone. Ring doesn't make any grand statements, suggesting rather the isolation of the various characters and the irony of their understanding of each other's situations: instead, it pokes at the frail fabric of how reality is shaped. The subtle binaural recordings, which map sound in such a way as to apparently position the sounds in space, mocks the way that the mind maps sense data and the constant shifts of scene and perspective shatter any consistent perception of events.

It's the true horror of ambiguity, the nightmare of social disorder. Alliances are made and broken, a child may have died to the nonchalant notice of one adult, a woman may be performing sexual tricks in a hotel, the group may be trying to unravel a past conflict. The group dissolves, reforms, bullies and cajoles. It feels so intimate and yet it is a prerecording that is the same for every audience member.

It could mean anything... I am lost... it's black... the lights go back up and only one demon is left.... is this supposed to be a review? It starts off like another one of his lectures...