Gym Party
Made in China
Chapter Arts Centre
16/05/2014
Upon entering the performance space at Chapter the proscenium framing the stage immediately said to the audience fun, disco music and 3 names in huge lights gave the feeling that we are indeed in the ‘party’ aspect of the Gym Party. Settling into our seats, the performers entrance with a quirky dance instantly gave the sense of comedy and that we were about to see something fun and exciting.
Three performers with no specific gender at first, looked a little like disco Tim Henman’s dressed in white tennis gear and bright, colourful and similar wigs these complimented the stage with their simplicity, which was very effective – we were then able to focus on the actions and words.
Joined together in their group, they began to speak to us, introducing themselves, their outlook on us and the world and finishing each other’s sentences with no break or falter. As a performer, the knowledge of trying to perfect this is always difficult and it was extremely admiring to see how well they executed this. Audience interaction was immediate – asking of audience members names and referring to them in their views of the world which gave a sense of individuality for the audience, until the character of Chris established that to him, we would be referred to as ‘the group.’
The contrast of individualism and community was a running theme – the three performers loved one another and were close as a group; they share, converse and communicate as a group but as individuals, they are each better than each other, and the Gym Party competition was how they showed this. The back and forward notion that they spoke in, from community to how good they were as individuals imitated what we think in society – that we want to work as teams, and think that we enter into this in a fair and innocent way but in any situation, we do this to try to show how good we are, to show that we are different to others, that we are an individual. Gym Party’s aim is to highlight this through comedy and games.
Gym Party consists of 3 scenes in repetition – the interludes I spoke of above, the games and the consolations for the losers. With three games, these sequences are repeated approximately three times (for three rounds of games) yet, this is never boring – each time we are given something new, a new game, a new story or new consolation prize. This is always energetic and keeps the audience interested and on their toes.
The games themselves are ridiculous and hilarious. Firstly we see games such as audience throwing skittles at the performers to catch, head stands and marshmallow eating – contrasts of pain, disgust and comedy all in one set to evoke different emotions from the audience. The more the show goes on, the more we see the vulnerability that they are trying to convey about themselves and us; the second and third games utilising this by showing the vulnerability of us as humans and making the audience chose winners by voting on ‘who do you think’ questions, asked by an ominous being through sound and evidently, to the performers obvious surprise, random ideals such as ‘who do you think is the best kisser.’ This impromptu execution of the questions was interesting to see how the performers recovered with reaction and action on the spot, however there were times where they seemed to lose this professionalism and broke the performance barrier, showing their true selves. While at times this was funny to see their humanity, it slightly broke the illusion of performance. The audience choice in the third game of who gets to have the ‘last dance’ as it were also showed this idea of choice, vulnerability and need to be liked.
While these comical moments gave great entertainment to us as audience members, we were soon shocked to see that the consolation prizes were of horrible moments, illustrating our extreme cruelty to ourselves. Ranging from beating themselves, to publicly humiliating one another’s personalities and looks to drowning each other in water. These moments broke the comical value, bringing the audience back to reality and how while we may want to work as a team, as Jess the character says, we will still ‘grind each other to dust.’
We were soon brought back to comedy and happiness with the ‘contestants’ elaborate and unprofessional dance routines to cheesy disco music. The use of this, the lights, the use of microphone to thank the audience after a win, Chris’s musical interlude with playing a song ‘Evelong’ by Foo Fighters to highlight a memory, and highlight an audience’s memory gave the feel of a game show, and so the positive and negative contrasts made this game show a cruel conveyance of reality.
All posts by Hannah Goslin
Review – Verve – Postgraduate Performance of the Northern School of Contemporary Dance by Hannah Goslin
Review – Verve – Postgraduate Performance of the Northern School of Contemporary Dance
Hannah Goslin
3rd May 2014 – National Dance Company Wales, Dance House
Entering the Dance House of the National Dance Company Wales, the audience already was a mix of a variety of demographics and all obviously full of excitement and interest for the show to unfold. For a postgraduate show, the turn out itself was very impressive.
The audience was left to become accustomed in the dark until a golden haze crept across the stage, cast by the lighting to compliment the figures elegantly entering from the wings. The dancers were kitted out in skin tight golden one pieces, with enlarged bottoms. Straight away, this gave a comical effect to the beginning piece as well as a sense of confusion to the costume choices. ‘Re-wind’ took images from artist Yeruba Yelsdraeb, who drew grotesque images of figures with strange placements of their hands, large bottoms and grotesque faces. The idea behind the golden costumes in contrast to Yelsdraeb’s original Victorian style outfits was to show the contortions of the dancers bodies to compliment the grotesque characters as well as to de-gender-lise them – however, a skin tight suit obviously makes this a little difficult to achieve. I found myself in two minds about this piece; there was an element of melodrama with the facial expressions of the dancers and also an element of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ with what I interpreted from the narrative. Personally, I feel that, in dance, expressions are translated into the movements and without prior knowledge to the stimulus, it seemed out of place. However, the dancers strong movements were interesting but at the same time, left me wondering where the more ‘contemporary’ part of the dance element was.
A contrast to the first piece, ‘Mute’ began with very earthly music, costumes and scene. The programme describes this piece as ‘an intricate and haunting landscape in which narrative is torn between logic and lost meaning’ and this was very evident by the initial impressions. Mute showed more of a contemporary aspect to dance, with the usual fluidity that you would expect. However, there were contrasts between this fluidity and sharp movements, both from the dancers as an ensemble and as individuals standing out from the crowd. Dancers Marie-Corrin Chilon and Leanne Horsey, for me, stood out the most in this piece. Marie’s concentration and how she easily threw her elegant frame across the ‘haunting landscape’ was eye catching. Mute ended its stylish and energetic movements with Leanne’s jagged and intriguing movements of which seemed to become faster and faster till she was only a impacting blur.
After a short intermission, a new and completely different production unfolded. ‘You, Me, the Door and the Floor’ began as a comical and interesting work of performance art. An almost game show about love and relationships, the main character went through an experience of a dance blind date, picking planted dancers from the audience and experiencing what a relationship with each character would be like, to find the ‘one.’ A delightful and funny game show host in the form of dancer Sandro Piccirilli (who steals one of the potential loves) executed the comedy effect well and was consistently in character, as were all the dancers. Metaphorical images and use of voice and microphone technology gave this a different feel from a dance piece and was a very interesting concept. A image of a turbulent relationship with animalistic noises and dance-fight images illustrated to the audience something that we all could relate to. The energy that was put into images such as ‘jumping through hoops’ and unadulterated lust and love were consistently high and impressive to how these dancers managed to keep this at top peak while using acting and speech.
Finally, the piece that I felt we had slowly been leading up to, ‘Ocean.’ A reminiscence of ‘Mute’ with its early colours and warmth of the set and costumes was then slightly contrasted by the use of folk music, giving a more modern day twist to a potential mirroring piece. Ocean was astounding. Again, the level of energy seen through all the pieces was at its top and in fact, was above this with the constant fast paced movement. A use of deep and naturalist voices were used, resonating around the room and almost impacted you as an audience member deep down into your chest and stomach each time. Contrasts of the traditional contemporary movement to the naturalistic beating of the dancers feet with an external rhythm to the music was an impressive sight to see. The elements of dance, vocals, rhythm and acting skills show that these graduates are something special. Over all, the climax of the piece with this beat and vocals left you in complete awe and was the crescendo that one would want but not necessarily expect at the end of a contemporary dance piece.