The Shrinking Violets

THE AFTER-PERFORMANCE

Today’s post is from our friend and guest blogger Christopher Matthews Hutchings, reviewing London’s contemporary dance inspired by the work of Lizzie Kew-Ross. Go Chris!

 

A couple weeks ago I went to see a work by Lizzie Kew-Ross at the Old Vic Tunnels, which compelled me. The dancers ran through the space only to find themselves in conflict at any point with each other. Their stories and conflicts got far more violent and travelled throughout the space. My body was getting so involved in the performance, as it was a scene I didn’t want to watch but knew I had too. It was my sentence to watch these gruesome images unfold. And the fact that I was allowed to move freely through the space until a certain point, where my relationship changed and the dancers started to move the audience like cattle, threw the space connecting me to the image of a prisoner being sentenced to watch the others being tortured. The guards (ushers) were standing at every exit, which added to my idea that I could not escape. 
 

 

The scene unfolds until the space is filled with so many sounds and movements that the audience becomes completely disoriented. All of sudden everything cuts out and 3 dancers take florescent strip lights to push the audience to one side of the hall. The plastic strip lights felt like the police barricades keeping everything back in order so you could witness from a safe distance the final plea of 2 performers who possibly might be escaping from this situation. Though what they do is not a duet as they can’t seem to trust each other. It is something they are doing alongside one other- one with more calmness than the second. At that very moment I am left in darkness, an extreme blackout. The tunnels become so silent, no lights, no noise and not one person moving. The audience has no idea what to do. I have no idea what to do. I wonder how am I going to get out of here? What will they do to come rescue us and take us away from this horror? And then it happens… the escape route that I like to call “The After-Performance”.  

 

After a silence of what felt like 5 minutes, someone started to clap and then, again like cattle, the audience followed suit. The lights came on and the dancers stood up with smiles on their faces. One dancer came running across the room in this typical (if you are a dancer you know it) bouncy  curtain-call run. I have done it many times, but it is the curtain-call run that a performer generally  has to do or doesn’t even realise s/he is doing it…

 

You start with a bounce or a lift in the body so you are at a high point and then you run with a crescendo to either have a final bounce at your standing point or come feet together but definitely marking the point A to Point B. From there you have a few choices based on where you are in a line of performers. You can sway side to side to bring yourself together and also see if everyone has made it on to the stage. You can stand forward with your hands folded in a prayer position between your legs like you are overwhelmed by the applause. You can pat the person next to you on the back and exchange small congrats or notes about mishaps during the performance. You can point out someone in the crowd that was suppose to come because they are connected to the whole group or was a company member before. There are a gradient of smiles to light chuckles. You don’t tend to move your feet as you are trying to keep a safe distance so that the whole company of performers fit on the stage and stay centered. And for those who are not dancers, that ‘center’ or order is not improvised but actually the opposite. Someone has been appointed center so they will lead the bows.  I have even been in lines where the center most points were comprised of dancers who were considered more important to the work or higher up in the company because they had been appointed that position by the choreographer, or had just been dancing for the company much longer than the others. Where does the choreographer stand if s/he was also a performer? Never in the center of the line but either just off center or at the very end. 

 

This usually goes on for 2 bows and then everyone runs off stage into the wing where further congrats are exchanged while always keeping one ear out to see if everyone should run back on for a second act of “The After-Performance”.  There is always this confusion as well because the performers have to re-arrange themselves backstage; and so, everyone must quickly in one second try to arrange themselves back in the order or closest to the order they were in before. Repeating the options mentioned before.

 

I began to question why I felt tortured so much only to have that memory erased from my physical body. I am not sure if I like to say what should have happened at the end of the piece because I am the spectator, but I was a bit angry to not walk away with the thoughts and experience fresh in my mind. It’s like I had to return my costume at the end of the performance too quickly. However, I was so affected by the performance that I could not stop thinking about it. I bought tickets again to see it a few days later, thinking, how will it be?  Seeing it for a second time, will the moments have less effect on me? Will I stand in different places so that my views will change? I went in trying not to remember what I had seen before. And what amazed me was the second time was much harder to watch. The images took my body further into a place of emptiness. My energy was sucked out and I could not do anything to help these souls. Twisted, my body went from horror to fear. Three dancers picked up the florescent tube lights and pushed the audience back to one side of the tunnel and the 2 performers start to make that final image. The fear of the applause started to rein in my head. I started to look for the exit only to realise that I was blocked by a crowd of people and security guards. I realised I was with my friend….Would she find me after the performance? I didn’t want the feeling of returning my costume again! I wanted to be left with the images, with the work, and with my perceptions. I wanted to be left with my emptiness and lack of energy. I didn’t want to see another performance. 

 

I am not being arrogant when I allude to the idea that performers shouldn’t bow. I only question why we should stand there like jesters excepting approval; and, that approval may just be a formality  rather than the truth or necessity. Instead of making the audience feel horrible for doing what they are suppose to do I will make another proposition:

 As someone once said in a discussion, ‘Dance is a community not industry.’ I think about news articles where they say they applaud the community or thank someone from the community. But what if we, as dancers and dance-lovers, put ourselves in the industry. If you are reading this and you are a banker, shop-worker, or any other career other than a performer, try at the end of your day to run on the street into the world where your business feeds the economy. Now make sure you use all the secret performance recommendations I gave you in paragraph 4. See if you get applause for your work. (Note: Maybe that’s why the Arts Council is being cut- because artists get their applause at the end of the performance with no other acknowledgement that their work inherently feeds into the economy.)  

 

My second proposition: 

Try not to applaud for a performance. Walk out and let yourself be affected and challenged. Don’t wipe the chalkboard clean; don’t give back your spectator costume. Walk out of your office- that being a performance space or dance class- and see the people, the banks, and the buses moving.  Realise that the performance already contributed to the economy. 

 

This makes me think about a phrase I heard and the Shrinking Violets talked about before referred to as ‘the good job’ or ‘honest living’.  What makes a good/honest job? I think the job is good if it feeds the economy. So a banker equals a good job, a shop-keeper equals a good job, and a dancer equals a good job. The duality of points in this post (personal affect and economy) is not a lack of structure but maybe part of a bigger picture. 

To find out more about Christopher Matthews Hutchings  follow his links:

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