The experience of watching theatre at a festival is very
different to that of watching a standalone piece, as inevitably seeing so many
different shows back to back means you start to connect the dots, finding links
and readings that couldn’t possibly happen if you saw those shows individually.
Friday night at the Flare Weekender had two shows, which on
their own I would have found interesting, arresting even, but which in contrast
to each other had a very intense effect on me.
Amusements by Sleepwalk Collective is a darkly voyeuristic
show, manipulating your senses through a pair of headphones, letting the
performer Iara Solano whisper in your ear as she tugs at your memories, playing
with your consent and gazing at you with tears in her eyes.
Velocity Pumps by Beerman, Shvestarova, Theisen consists of
three young women isolating parts of their body and contorting them into
bodybuilding or balletic poses designed to strain the muscles til we see the
bulge, the girls breath racing, their veins popping.
Both of these shows seemed focussed around fragmenting the
female body, albeit to different intents and purposes.
Iara invited us
to watch her disappear, her lips, her legs, her blood, her skin. Her few
movements draw our attention to the areas of her body most sensitive to touch.
The voice of a strange unseen man in our ears asking us if he can touch himself
while he watches the girl makes us feel trapped, horribly, in a dark and
twisted peep show. We do not know if the girl consents, we just know that she
is removing her knickers for him. She is broken down into components to be
sexualised, fetishised, worshipped and adored. She is broken down into these
parts until she disappears from view, leaving only a pair of stilettos to mark
where the woman once was.
Conversely Velocity Pumps showed us the parts of the body
women are so often expected to hide, to neglect. We saw women with muscles,
with sweat, with blood pumping through their veins not to please men but to
increase and show off their strength and power. We focus on calves and lats,
biceps and abs, and revel in seeing someone work so hard. But the smiles are
forced, the breathing laboured, the cheeks flushed. For us to appreciate the
strength of these women they must put on a show for us. They must turn this
strength to dancing. We must be entertained, not intimidated. The world of the
bodybuilder is one steeped in vanity and well-worn poses, a world that feels
faintly ridiculous. This is strength with no place to go, power with nothing to
be powerful over. Once again this is fetishisation of the body, though a
fetishisation of the body’s capability to perform, not simply to… well, to make
new bodies.
These two shows on their own would have made me think, I may
have ‘enjoyed’ them more individually, but in tandem they have made me
seriously question the use of the female body in performance and the place and
purpose of such fetishisation. Highly thought provoking work, and well recommended.
(cross posted on the Flare Weekender Blog.)
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