On the Dutch hothouse and the blossoming of dance, cont.

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Photos by (l - r) : Joris-Jan Bos, Laurent Ziegler, Robert Benschop / Design by n/a designlab

Hell

In describing Emio Greco | PC's work several critics hit on the word "terrifying." Maybe that's because Hell emerges out of and recedes back into an inky darkness in which its denizens endure ongoing duress. As the work begins, Greco's motley crew, having fully digested the mechanics of pop-culture magnetism, delivers a puzzling but infectious rendition of lip-synched classic rock. They understand the lowered gaze, the "come and get me/I'm off limits" pout, the strut and shimmy of American Idol (and, just as glitzy, Italian RAI-TV). Is one definition of "hell" our global media culture? We are so easily seduced. But nothing is that simple here—we are seduced because entertainment is entertaining!

Greco and Pieter C. Scholten (dramaturg and collaborator whose initials provide the PC of the group's name) seduce and then abandon us. After we are fully drawn in by the "pre-show," they leave us looking into a silent bleak space with three signs of "life": an archway rimmed with bare light bulbs, a single leafless tree worthy of Beckett, and a robot that tootles around like R2D2, casting its glance in beams of bluish light. Greco learned well from Jan Fabre, the Belgian director for whom he danced, about crafting stunning stage pictures.

Just as vital to the work as its fierce activity are silent interstices that function like a drug, sedating us into the timelessness of Hell. As the empty stage gradually repopulates, dancers accumulate, one at a time, taking turns smoking a cigarette as the others stand still. What pristine light. What gorgeous costumes—very thin long knit dresses on both men and women. As this image develops, finally it's Greco himself smoking, in an ill-fitting black wig, sending up a fat column of smoke. It's absurd, disturbing, and intriguing.

Greco's dancers touch only in rare moments of gentle partnering. They neither oppress each other nor bring each other succor. They are all acted upon by a force outside themselves, driven to ratchet up their dancing to a demonic fierceness. The movement builds on familiar movement trajectories but makes them bigger, faster, and sharper. It simultaneously deconstructs the body by breaking down actions so that dancers' legs drag and slither and their bodies seem possessed of more joints than a normal human body. Treating stillness as a kinetic midpoint, the dancers traverse it, wobbling and trembling on either side.