If I had to sum up Maximum in a word, it would be ‘different’. Where some shows flood your senses and imagination with stimulation and ideas, Maximum doesn’t do that. Where some shows condense time, distilling decades or even centuries into a window of two hours, Maximum does the opposite. Maximum is promoted as a dance theatre work, but there is little in the way of recognisable dance choreography and virtually no dialogue. So, as I said, it’s different.
It’s different in that experimental/post-modern/avant-garde sense too, and I suppose credit is due here to the devisors for daring to present a work that’s a bit abstract, one not necessarily guaranteed to be accessible to a general audience. However, a handful of interesting concepts alone isn’t enough to make up a work, and it’s a mistake to assume it’s anything near enough to sustain an audience’s attention through a work of this length in a manner that’s satisfactory so as to justify its existence.
The premise of Maximum is to explore the similarities between athletes and dancers through the physicality of the two performers, one being a dancer and the other a bodybuilder. It’s in the peformances from Natalie Abbott as the dancer (who also directed and came up with the concept) and Nathan Daveson as the bodybuilder that the strongest element of this work presents itself. Both have achieved distinction in real life in their respective disciplines, and both remain admirably committed to their sparse repetition of Spartan movements throughout the duration of the show.
Maximum clearly seeks to challenge audiences, testing their patience and attention spans, possibly nudging them beyond the limit of their comfort zones. To this end it’s successful and the concept resonates. It’s as if the show is trying to tease out from the audience a mirror of some of the more tedious emotions bodybuilders and dancers go through as necessary course of their training.
The core ideas have a lot of potential, both in terms of content and impact in shifting popular perception of dancers. Anyone with even a smattering of first-hand experience with ballet or contemporary (the kinds of dance audiences go to experience in a theatrical setting) will tell you that yes, of course dancers are athletes, even if they aren’t always perceived that way by layfolk. Regrettably, all of this potential lays flat on the ground, and what we are presented with is something that’s arguably neither dance nor theatre, nor anything beyond the range of things one might expect to see observing a military training session — drawn out for far too long.
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Maximum
Director: Natalie Abbott
Dramaturge: Matthew Day
Designer: Matthew Adey
Sound Designer: Daniel Arnott
Producer: Kate Usher
Production Manager: Kyle Berry
Performers: Natlie Abbott & Nathan Daveson
The Roundhouse Theatre, La Boite Studios
25 November – 5 December 2015
