I missed the performance we were supposed to go to as a group on Thursday because I came 15 minutes late and they wouldn’t let me in, despite Professor Uchizono’s warning. However, I bought a ticket for Sunday and I had an absolutely marvelous time. I purchased a ticket for a floor seat and I made a new friend while there! We had a really good time together and simply enjoyed the dances – It felt like I was watching this dance the way dance is made to be seen, which is not with a class but with another person.
I thought this dance was extremely endearing and it felt like my heart grew from watching this performance. Sitting in the very front less than 5 feet from the actors, literally touching the floor with my body, made me “feel” the dances a lot more. I could feel there stomps and jumps, their energy was intoxicating. I loved Bel’s choice of introduction and specifically the progression in the introduction. At first we just have to look at them for a minute each, something which built up comfort and broke barriers – definitely on the audiences part, perhaps the performers felt this as well. Next we are introduced to them by name, age and profession (all actors/actresses – not dancers, curiously) and finally we are introduced to their disability. By the time we get to the disability though, it doesn’t feel uncomfortable, it just is a statement of fact – we have already been “desensitized” to the actors and we, at least I, stopped seeing them as “disabled” by this point.
Unfortunately I didn’t get the playbill and I don’t remember the dancer’s names by heart so I can’t refer to them by name but I will try to be as specific as possible.
When the 31 year old giant man came on stage, his whole essence was deceptive. When he finally began to dance with his spinning chair, the serious tone of this performance left the theater. He was smiling and shaking and having a grand old time. Not only was he happy, his peers were also happy, cheering him on and taking part and reinforcing the jovial nature of the performance – as they did with all the performances. The dance wasn’t extremely complicated but he put in energy and spunk and it wasn’t haphazardly put together nor was it a hodgepodge of movements, it was simple and fluid and wonderful. Other dancers like Julia and her rendition of Michael Jackson’s “They Don’t Really Care About Us” were more complicated but they never lost the flair that made all of them standout. These were people performing, well – extremely well, and they all had extreme disabilities – though they don’t necessarily look at it that way.
They were all happy when they were dancing; Julia – who said “I have down’s syndrome and I’m sorry,” who looked shell-shocked when she first came out, was smiling once her performance started, and once it ended, and once she sprawled out comfortably over the large side of her cohort Remo (I think the 31 year old) and another cast member, who both smiled and gladly welcomed her into their laps – just like they did the 48 year old during her performance of “Dancing Queen.” This performer epitomized the important points of this performance, or a great number of them. She gave it her all physically, we could see her panting heavily when her performance was done; she didn’t care about perceptions as we saw when she shamelessly (and rightfully so) picked her wedgie loose; she was there to have a good time, and she did; she demystified herself through the dance, she was no longer a disabled performer, she was the dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen.
Throughout the performance I was trying to understand how responsibility was involved. The only thoughts I had were that despite their difficulties these people were still putting out enormous effort to create enormous works. They weren’t dealt the best hand but they made it work, and it did work. There is no excuse for being dealt an average hand and not making it work, and there is absolutely no excuse whatsoever if you are dealt pocket queens (A very, very good hand in Texas Hold Em’).
Jerome Bel puts our vision into perspective, showing us that disability does not mean death. One by one, as the performers come up to share their disability, Bel Humanizes them in a very powerful way. We see them struggling to take the mic down and put it back up, each in their own way; we see them smile at each other when they come back from their mic session or performance. We see them being humans in the truest sense of the word, laughing together, performing together, helping each other – at some point one of the performer’s zipper got snagged in the middle of their sweater and another performer helped them to fix it. I don’t know why he chose to show the 3 dances he didn’t chose, but I really didn’t care, because I wasn’t there to enjoy Jerome Bel and his choices (Well, I was, but that’s not the point) I was there to enjoy the dancers and their presence, and the 3 that he didn’t chose were just as wonderful and heartwarming as the rest, albeit a little stranger and/or more plain.
I also found it odd that the translator really didn’t have a role other than translator, or rather that she assumed no greater role than just translator. Throughout the entire performance I thought she was going to somehow get involved. She was dressed in Nike kicks with ankle warmers and tight washed out jeans and a slightly more grey sweater top – she looked cool and like a dancer, but she never did – she just smiled and looked on as the performers did their thing, and maybe that was the point: you don’t need to be a cool dancer to be a cool dancer; or rather, you don’t need to look like a cool dancer to be a cool dancer.
I really can’t stress this enough, this performance was mesmerizing and invigorating. I felt so happy watching these free spirits fly across the stage, genuinely not concerned about their disabilities. I don’t know if I understood the message or exactly what I understood, but I know I was having a great time watching them do their thing.
(This was posted at 12:11 AM but wordpress doesn’t seem to have adjusted for daylights savings time – Ilizar Yusupov)
