martyn coutts

Two Faced Bastard
Chunky Move
Meat Market, Melbourne

This work has had a number of developments, none of which i saw – but apparently the last one had a lot of text in it – that all the performers spoke and it delved deeply into the Jekyll and Hyde story which was a coathanger for this piece from its inception. I was interested to see how this would be integrated, as the stories were in Tense Dave.

What unravelled during the show was an investigation into the performer and the life of the performer. No underlying narrative developed and things were consistently being undercut by the structure of the staging creating a constant state of Verfremdungseffekt in the audience. The influence of British company Forced Entertainment <real or subconcious> was obvious from the outset.

The audience was divided at the start into two groups – almost without their knowledge they were already asked to select a side – the dance side and the forum side. I had been told about this from someone who saw the preview and shuffled my way into the dance side. And here was where the audience for the first time began to deal with their own expectation of what they were seeing and indeed what they were missing out on. There is a very specific anxiety that happens when I feel like I am missing out on something, something childish and tantrumish arises within me. So beginning with a long solo by Steph Lake as we heard the opening to the show on the other side was wonderful for me. Here I was getting the words as they drifted over the partition and also got the ever present sensuality of Ms Lake. I WAS DEFINITELY ON THE RIGHT SIDE – good job Martyn.

But even having picked the correct side I started to wonder what  the other audience was being subjected <those poor wretches HA!> to on the talking side, and in doing so my mind was drifting to the other. The process of continually thinking of the ‘other’ was a curious and unnerving experience that stretched my mind in a delightful way.I had to mentally force myself to come back to what was in front of me, or i would drift.

A glorious section in which Brian Lipson tried to describe to the forum side what he was seeing on the other was pure genius – in this moment he had crystalised the whole experience of 2 faced bastard in a few lines of text and silly movement. Trying to describe abstract dance with words to an audience who couldn’t see it is totally pointless and thus affirms the power of dance, for it cannot be defined to the word, it cannot be summised – it is kinaesthetic, slippy and aesthetic <even these words are poor substitutes>. The continuation of this scene in which Brian then pushes onwards and interviews the dancers as they are dancing asking them what they are doing opened up an enormous philosophical hole in my head;

Here I am  – I am dancing, i am moving, i am feeling, on stage in the light – in front of you; the audience. I am being asked in this moment, what it is I am doing, I respond with how I am feeling and what kind of motion I am carrying out at the time. Even as I move and describe it, the act of describing it has changed what it is I am doing, and I have lost the moment I am describing because I am already beyond that now – I am fluid with time. The audience responds to the absurdity of dancing with a microphone and trying to explain how I feel while doing it – the act of defining it has crushed the abstraction, the power of the word has crushed the moment of the dance. But also the ripple of laughter has altered in a subtle way the action of dancing  – I am now changed in this moment because of you, the audience.

SO the word crushes the dance, BUT it also has the ability to shine a light on what it is the dancers are doing – as I said above, it proves that words are completely inadequate in this situation. What a sublime sequence, and delivered with such elan by Brian and such honesty and task by the dancers.

With so much post modern deconstruction there needs to be some content in a work for me otherwise it turns into formal navel gazing, and indeed there were some beautiful set pieces in this work that <even thought they still called each other by their first names all the way through, thus eschewing character> brought some emotion and colour to the work. There was a very sexy duet between Vincent Crowley and Steph Lake which played out against a comedy piece on the other side of the curtain, so it was almost like my side was seeing the dark underbelly of an affair played out in the darkness backstage – gorgeous. Another piece that played against an opposing piece on the other side was Antony Hamilton’s solo that he seemed to be getting the ideas from Brian for.

In many ways this piece reminded me of Tense Dave <similar structure, stage device and creative team>, in others it was like Wanted <asking questions of the art itself in the piece, self referential and deconstructing dance and theatre>, but somehow I feel like this piece is superior to both, I am not sure why yet, but it feels like a more mature and complex work, and for all its British postmodern swagger it is heartfelt and emotional as well.

The ending with the opening of the curtain to reveal the whole stage, to finally unify the duality of the stage, to rejoin our sister audience on the other side and to realise who all of this is for – for the audience…was a more satisfying ending than the Tense Dave ending where the revolve stopped and reversed as Dave walked the other way. As the curtains opened it felt like we had been trapped and we didnt even know it, and the liberation of seeing the people became an uplifting revelation.

YAY Chunky Move, yay Lucy and Gideon, this is why I go to see dance and why I should want to go see theatre. This is why I am proud of Melbourne and why I love our performers.