What
In this solo piece, the dancer’s body, even more so than the dance itself, assumes the spotlight in all its materiality, its intensely muscular presence and its physical beauty.
The constraining scenography of a slanting plank intensifies this impression by exposing the flesh as though it were on a butcher’s block or a dissection table. Vesalius’ anatomical plates are one source of inspiration for this production as were the Fourteen Stations of the Way of the Cross, which also emphasize the suffering body of Christ whose death is inevitable. Here, we find themes dear to Thierry Smits: the body, masculinity, agony and death and… certain notions associated with Christianity which have deeply marked the Western world, irrespective of whether one is a believer or otherwise.
These references, however, have an essentially visual impact and there are no other allusions to Vesalius or to Christianity in the performance which unfolds in a stripped-down decor and against a sonic backdrop that evokes the din, the shocks and the squeaks one undergoes whenever one enters an industrial complex and whose high volume causes an additional sacrifice on the part of spectators whose bodies are pierced by vibrations.
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