Performance of hope, rage and denial towards climate change
The story of climate change through the interplay of capitalism and consumerism and nature's survival is not often told through modern dance.
Tania Soubry and her company Vibrant Matter take on the topic in DJ Whimsey or what will the climate be like?, performed at the Grand Théâtre on Wednesday evening.
The performance opens with a bare stage, three dancers - one man and two women - and a DJ, dressed as clouds and the sun. The dancers move in a tight circle to electronica and techno music, slowly expanding the circle. Some movements are jerky, some grand, some fluid. Slowly the dancers spread out and rotate, a reminder of the movement of the planets of our solar system.
Then one dancer starts to sing the words to I want it all by Queen. She raises her arms in a mighty gesture and the pulsating music becomes spoken or sung lyrics by all three dancers, who slowly disrobe to reveal the body leotards of a skeleton, a superhero and a wild cat.
Capitalism, consumerism and mankind interplay through movements - coaxing and caressing, then bullying and aggressive.
The songs are carefully chosen. The superhero sings Jacques Brel’s Ne me quitte pas, while nature retorts with Nina Simone’s Sinnerman and the lines “where you gonna run to?”. The lyrics and movements intertwine to create something absurd and silly yet seeming to underline an important point that the natural world would make if it could speak words to mankind.
Several times the dancer representing nature falls, perhaps symbolising the extinction of a species or eradication of a unique ecosystem. The dancer representing man tries to help, but often it is too late - a jibe at the too little, too late, attitude towards climate change. All three performers sing songs about fire, from Johnny Cash to Alicia Keys. And the skeleton dancer justifies the need for greed and destruction with the words to the song Don’t cry for me Argentina.
This one-hour performance is mesmerising. There is a pattern to the dancers' movements. It’s witty and expressive, absurd and then suddenly violent. And throughout it all, the sound of running or dripping water reminds spectators of what this piece is really about.
The audience starts to see humans’ relationship to climate and the natural world. Much like the time lapse videos of receding glaciers it creates an urgency that we are hurtling towards an environmental calamity. We see how humans are affected, how we relate to climate in a mix of hope, rage and denial.
The programme says the performance is “dreamlike” but I found it very stark. The slow-motion ending seemingly going on forever and yet reminding us again of the planets moving around in our universe, only this time our planet, in the form of the stage, is littered with the debris of the dancers’ discarded clothing.
Soubry doesn’t present an alternative future, just a glimpse into a shocking reality of what will happen if we don’t take heed of climate change.
Tania Soubry’s DJ Whimsy or what will the climate be like? will be performed on 7 December at 20.00 at the Grand Théâtre.
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