Posted by For reasons that I could never pinpoint, I’ve never been a fan of dance. I suspect it’s the only artistic discipline in existence that I have basically no appreciation for whatsoever. Not that I’ve had a mile of exposure to the art, but over the years I have definitely seen more than my fair share.
All that was poised to change after I saw Betroffenheit, a modern dance piece that absolutely blew my mind. I was enthralled with the performance from start to finish and walked out of the theatre breathless when it was over.
“How could anyone not like that!?!” I exclaimed on my way out.
And so I was left to wonder if that show marked the beginning of my newfound love of dance or if it was just a one-off fluke. To find out I would, of course, have to attend another modern dance performance, and just a few months later, on October 12th, 2018, I had my chance.
The show was called Xenos, and it was commissioned to mark the hundredth anniversary of WWI. It was a one-man show (if you don’t count the musicians, which you should), choreographed and danced by a gentleman named Akram Khan.
Khan is Indian and has been trained in traditional Indian dance, so it wasn’t too surprising that a pair of Indian musicians were playing on stage when I sat down. The stage was a plain, flat space that arced up at the back like something out of a skateboard park, and it was decorated with a hundred ropes which were scattered to create a paisley pattern.
It looked good and it sounded good. I was starting to like the show before it even started. And then it started.
Okay, there were tons of technical and staging tricks that were out of this world. Heck, when the ropes all started pulling all the props up, over, and off of the stage I had to press my hands against my mouth to keep from squealing, I loved it so much.
And when the scrim above the stage transluced itself revealing five musicians sawing madly away at their violins and basses, well I almost lost it again.
And the music itself? It morphed from traditional Indian classical music to thick atonality, finally emerging at the end into Mozart’s Requiem. Oh, it was so fantastic!
The only thing I didn’t like was the dancing.
I sat there trying to think back to Betroffenheit, trying to imagine how that dancing had been so different, so much more captivating. How had that guy’s movements explode my aesthetics so fully and completely, and yet here in Xenos these very, very similar movements were doing nothing for me, aside from reaffirming that I had no time for dance?
And still it remains a mystery.
Although one thing was confirmed for almost certain: My love of dance was indeed a one-off.
Shame. I can remember the days when I didn’t like mayonnaise, and oh, how my horizons have expanded in the time since I came to my senses regarding the condiment. And to think, dance could have been the same.
Todd Man Out 