Composed as part of the LIFT Critical Writing workshops with Maddy Costa, via IdeasTap. The rest of the group, and words on other exciting things, here: http://welcometodialogue.com/projects/liftideastap-critical-writing/
I read an article once discussing what an audience actually gets in return for their theatre ticket. A playwright was quoted in it, saying he made an active decision not to put 'silence' into his stage directions, because an audience is paying to hear words, not watch actors standing around on stage.
I read an article once discussing what an audience actually gets in return for their theatre ticket. A playwright was quoted in it, saying he made an active decision not to put 'silence' into his stage directions, because an audience is paying to hear words, not watch actors standing around on stage.
Interesting.
This came to mind while I was watching
Grupo de Rua perform CRACKz as part of LIFT at Sadler's Wells. It is a dance
piece, blending hip hop with contemporary dance to 'deconstruct' hip hop, to
'challenge the stereotype' and 'question the status of art in a digital era'.
(Sounds like a pretty good funding application, right? Tick tick tick.)
Regardless of what it was about, I was expecting to see some dance. Instead, the
lights dimmed, the music started, and we waited in pitch black for something to
happen....
And we waited...
And I listened to the music, great music,
composed by the Vladislav Delay Quartet, with a gritty, dirty, humming
undertone and a lilting jazz beat on top...
Until at last a spot of light fell upon
a corner of the stage and dancers whirled into it, bent at the waist and
spinning across the stage. They looked like insects, appearing and disappearing
out of the ground. The lights dimmed. Another spot of light came up, and this
little routine continued...
And continued...
And I wondered if the point was for us
to get so bored of seeing the same thing over and over again that we, as an
audience, became numb to it and achieved a heightened state of mind, within which
we had a unanimous epiphany and recognised the deeper meaning of the piece.
For me, this didn't happen.
The movement changed. The dancers stood
up, held out their arms – but dear god they were spinning again. This time
faster, more stomach churning, and still with the same infuriating
lights-up-lights-down routine. I was begging for them to stop spinning, stop
stopping, and breathe into a neat little ensemble piece that would be slick and
clever in the way that hip hop normally is. I know Bruno Beltrão was seeking to
deconstruct hip hop, but I didn't realise he was taking out what was
fundamentally good about it.
To mark the end of this section, the
music stopped, all of the lights came up and the dancers continued to dance,
(as an ensemble, at last!) but the only sound was of their breath and their trainers
squeaking on the stage floor. This made me feel weird, and a little insecure,
in a really brilliant way. Where did the music go? Here, I did have a minor
epiphany: "What is dance without music? This is clearly a deconstruction
of hip hop. It's clearly challenging the stereotype. I wonder what the status
of art is in a digital era?"
I'm being facetious. But apart from this
moment, I just had no idea what was going on in the piece. There was a section
in which the dancers were chasing each other with 'guns', another when they
were all backed up against the wall, and many where they walked slowly – but purposefully
– towards each other. But there wasn’t enough physical dialogue for me to find
my own narrative. In duets there seemed to be a really powerful conversation
happening between the dancers, charged with intent: I didn't know what that intent
was, but I was desperate to see the conversation unfold.
At the end of the piece, after the
curtain call, the music returned and we clapped along while the dancers
freestyled. First thought? "Oh, this is cheesy." Second thought?
"Oh, they can actually dance! That choreography did them a
disservice." Third thought: "I am clapping along to the music while
super-cool Brazilian street dancers stand on their heads. I have probably never
felt more white/British/middle class in my life. Well done, Sadler's Wells.
This is why I love you."
When I pay to see dance, I pay to see
well-trained dancers do amazing things, to see a 'story' unfold and to
feel/think slightly differently about how I move through life as a human being.
CRACKz made me feel perhaps 50% of each thing, most of which was after the
curtain call.