"Body Remix/Goldberg Variations is a work in two acts. The dancers, huddled together in a corner, appear in grey, moth-eaten knitted sheaths and pants. They tentatively step out on pointe shoes, men and women alike. Most have only one pointe shoe on, and they are used not only as footwear but also as brutal, alien-like gloves that also hit together like percussion. The stage is miked in a way that captures not only the tapped sound of the shoes, but well-integrated breaths and speech from the dancers.
The first act introduces a range of equipment (crutches, ski poles, zimmer frames, harnesses for flying) normally used as support mechanisms for people with disabilities. Instead, the prosthetics force the dancers to relinquish their normal body functions and explore alternative vocabularies of movement.
This creates a world where the body is transformed, adapting and reshaping physical patterns of moving and becoming dehumanised in the process. Add to this a reference to ballet, with tutus and pointe shoes, and a clear statement emerges about ballet's potential to disfigure the body.
The second act continues this theme but focuses more on the disabling aspects of losing the function of human limbs. This all sounds somewhat benign, but Chouinard pushes this disfigurement into costumes with bondage-style strapping that barely cover genitalia and naked breasts.
There is a fine line between pleasure and pain, exemplified in a duet with a male groaning audibly into a microphone at each step taken on pointe by his female partner. He leaves the stage distressed, but she continues the vocalisation of her pointe work with erotic groans of pleasure rippling through her body.
Chouinard is making a statement about ballet: how its beauty destroys the body, how the dancer becomes a slave to the music and to the body aesthetic. There is humour present, but the work goes beyond affectionate mocking and becomes frustrating in its repetitive inventiveness.
All this could be achieved in one act, not two. Beyond the provocations in the creation of this endlessly articulate display of disrupted and distorted bodies, there is little else, resulting in a mildly dissatisfying work."
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"Body Remix/Goldberg Variations is a work in two acts. The dancers, huddled together in a corner, appear in grey, moth-eaten knitted sheaths and pants. They tentatively step out on pointe shoes, men and women alike. Most have only one pointe shoe on, and they are used not only as footwear but also as brutal, alien-like gloves that also hit together like percussion. The stage is miked in a way that captures not only the tapped sound of the shoes, but well-integrated breaths and speech from the dancers.
The first act introduces a range of equipment (crutches, ski poles, zimmer frames, harnesses for flying) normally used as support mechanisms for people with disabilities. Instead, the prosthetics force the dancers to relinquish their normal body functions and explore alternative vocabularies of movement.
This creates a world where the body is transformed, adapting and reshaping physical patterns of moving and becoming dehumanised in the process. Add to this a reference to ballet, with tutus and pointe shoes, and a clear statement emerges about ballet's potential to disfigure the body.
The second act continues this theme but focuses more on the disabling aspects of losing the function of human limbs. This all sounds somewhat benign, but Chouinard pushes this disfigurement into costumes with bondage-style strapping that barely cover genitalia and naked breasts.
There is a fine line between pleasure and pain, exemplified in a duet with a male groaning audibly into a microphone at each step taken on pointe by his female partner. He leaves the stage distressed, but she continues the vocalisation of her pointe work with erotic groans of pleasure rippling through her body.
Chouinard is making a statement about ballet: how its beauty destroys the body, how the dancer becomes a slave to the music and to the body aesthetic. There is humour present, but the work goes beyond affectionate mocking and becomes frustrating in its repetitive inventiveness.
All this could be achieved in one act, not two. Beyond the provocations in the creation of this endlessly articulate display of disrupted and distorted bodies, there is little else, resulting in a mildly dissatisfying work."
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