Originally written for Exeunt.
Let's take a moment to consider that photo – ‘Lunch atop a Skyscraper’ - of the builders sat on a girder taking their lunch break while they build the RCA Building in New York.
For me - if not for others - the reason that
photo is so brilliant and beautiful and compelling is because of the absurd
contrast between how happy, calm and confident the men are, while they look
like they are only a gust of wind away from falling hundreds of feet towards
the paving slabs of New York City. It was taken as a humorous publicity stunt,
but the danger of it remains. It is the epitome of fearlessness, of what it means
to see an opportunity – a once in a
lifetime, privileged opportunity - and take it.
Let's bear that photo in mind while we look at SAFE,
a dance piece choreographed by Zoie Golding and her all male company, Zoielogic.
The piece is about masculinity, fragility, and the men who built the Empire
State Building. It shows men who are bound together by the brotherhood of
shared hard graft, using that team work to throw planks of wood between each
other, to support each other as they climb the scaffolding and try their weight
at balancing on wood propped against a platform. It shows us men who look as if
they might be standing on the precipice of something spectacular...
...But never quite reach it. The performance at
The Point in Eastleigh was the first of the tour, so I am inclined to allow for
a little nervousness in the approach to jumping between planks of wood. But
first night nerves do not account for limp legs and trailing arms - for movement that
is not fully explored, neither in performance nor choreography. Now, I'm not
saying that I wanted acrobatics and death defying stunts...but let's refer back
to the photo of the men on the girder. I sort of am.
For a piece to be titled 'SAFE', I don’t think I’m alone in expecting it to be the exact opposite of that. If it's
about masculinity, we want to see men at the extreme end of physical and
emotional conquest. If it's about men building one of the tallest buildings in
the world, then show us them at the height of it, looking down at us with
bravery and prowess and danger and vulnerability. And no, I'm not saying that
the piece should be site specific. But again, to a certain extent, I sort of
am.
Instead, there was a dull thud every time a
dancer landed on the wooden boards that made up the stage, the most potentially
exciting pieces of set were barely engaged with and often interesting little
stories were happening between the characters, but the physical language
between them was difficult to understand. And anyway, so much would be
happening at once, so it was impossible to know what was story, and what was banal
set building.
As soon as things seemed to be building, we were
left quite literally with just the scaffolding, and none of the architecture.
When a stack of planks of wood came out I thought, "Great, I wonder how
many things you can do with a plank of wood!" only to see that the answer
was a resounding "Not very much." The most imaginative use was when
the dancers lay the planks across each other and held them in a square,
elevated to waist height, while one dancer hopped between them. This was kind
of cool, and an interesting demonstration of the fragility and masculinity to
which the piece allegedly purports. But this was one small moment in a 90
minute long piece.
The piece is littered with a handful of tiny
moments wherein the dancers show us their true physical skill, and Zoie shows
us that yes, she has latched onto an interesting concept. But otherwise, it
drones on, with any sense of a discernible story left by the wayside leaving it
clunky, shy and slow.
The main difference between this piece and the Lunch
atop a Skyscraper photo is that after their lunch break, the men went back to
work, and built the building. This piece remains on its lunch break, with all
of scaffolding, and none of the building.
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