I liked how Eunice Hew pointed out specific moments of humor in the performance as well as the music to support her evaluation. Her descriptions also gave the reader a good sense of the image of the performance. I agree with her about how the moments of humor gave it a break from the two hour long repetition, but I’d also like to bluntly add that not those moments could have detracted from the sheer monotony of the entire piece as a whole. Like Eunice, I really did enjoy those moments, such as “I’m Giving Up On You”, or the interactions between the performers, but for the most part it was just intensely, incredibly, completely and overwhelmingly boring. Thus I will not be so kind as Eunice in my critique.

At first it started out very promising. The dark lighting, six barely visible figures beating out a rhythm with their body that can be felt on the floor through your feet. As the lights came on, you saw that all but one had their eyes taped over and still they were moving in a circle, slapping their bodies in sync without mistakes. They yelled out names and one was always left to hit out the beat. In the beginning, I was really entranced.

After this introduction, the performers removed the tape. One of them then said that anybody is free to leave any time, but neither the performers nor the audience is allowed to return once they have left. And then starts a two hour long rendition of the SAME EXACT RHYTHM. Seriously, it was the same pattern of slaps and jumps and hitting the body. The only difference was where they did it and the background music.

And that’s my main problem. A rhythm isn’t engaging unless it changes, develops, evolves. Themes in classical music would develop over a piece. Even modern pop songs have different lyrics. But for all it looked physically exhausting, I wasn’t engaged. They didn’t even have an underlying beat that connected them. I couldn’t make any sense of their movements– the only pattern I could see was that usually one person was doing something different. Ultimately, you could see as everyone was getting tired, they started dropping out one by one. Sometimes the others looked like they wanted to leave, but then another would start up the dance again. Who knows, maybe it’s some kind of social commentary on herd mentality. With the comment on anyone being free to leave at any time, I wonder if the performers left and choreographed times, but I feel like I should have taken advantage of it and left myself first.