David Hughes Dance Scotland promises productions of a ‘once seen never forgotten’ nature and this latest is no exception. With a simultaneous bow down and two-fingers up to Charles Bukowski’s literary alter-ego Henry Chinaski, this performance is powerful, crude and raw.
Billed as a dance piece that features live music from Belgian rock duo ‘I Love Sarah’, one could assume that the usual dancing-to-music format would be rolled out, with the ‘liveness’ of the music giving it an extra edge. Assumptions being what they are, I should have braced myself against them, but was instead hurled without warning into a visceral experience of masculine debauchery.
Set in the band’s home studio, the two musicians and five dancers – all male – hang out together, while the band try to finish recording their album. Out in the foyer ten minutes before the start, dancer Michael Sherin was already playing the part of an excited fan: dressed in tracky-bottoms tucked into his socks and a nerdy woolly hat pulled low across his forehead, he loudly and nervously chatted about the band and the imminent ‘concert’ to anyone brave enough to make eye-contact.
Once inside the theatre space, Sherin continued to shout and mumble, restlessly urging a sense of anticipation from his place in the audience. The performance on stage had also already begun, with the two rock gods intermittently playing the drums and electric guitar while their mates slouched on the rotting sofa or prowled about the flat drinking beer. One was out cold on the stained and torn double mattress in a dim corner of the room.
At some point the house lights went out, Sherin managed to force his way into the band’s seedy flat and, pretty seamlessly, the performance proper began. The music was loud and at times disturbing and the dancers’ movements began as rhythmic, stylised extensions of ‘just hanging out with my mates’. They jumped over the sofa, fell onto the mattress, wrestled each other to the floor, drank more beer and ate pizza.
Gradually the movements fell into a more obviously choreographed routine that grew to display the diversity of dance backgrounds existing within this troupe – from ballet and contemporary to Irish and b-breaker. There were moments of quiet and stillness as well as some dialogue, before finally building to a repetitive, relentless crescendo.
Choreographer Kylie Walters has cleverly and creatively crafted this super-talented testosterone-fuelled bunch into a performance that is fabulous in parts and absolutely fascinating overall.
Tour dates
6th November, Stornoway
8th November, Ullapool
9th November, Glasgow