Twenty years of working together give Kate Denborough and Gerard Van Dyck of KAGE a fluidity of physical communication where their bodies hum, sing and shout in unison. Their latest work, Flesh and Bone, gives voice to issues of gender ambiguity. At the beginning you don’t know who is the man and who is the woman; as they exchange outward signifiers of gender the question of sexual identity becomes less and less important and the whole thing becomes a game.
The set – a polished sloping mirror – reflects the audience; the soundtrack includes electronic staccato vocals. The two performers play at swapping roles, shedding clothes, exchanging rubber genitals and throwing each other about in movements that sometimes parody gender stereotypes and sometimes enter deeply into a story, speaking to the fact that they are man and woman but without following the predictable path of concluding with sexual connection. Elements of the duo’s long creative collaboration inform their dance vocabulary: they enter a separate world of their own making. In speaking of the show, the two do, however, emphasise that what happens on stage doesn’t involve the anecdotal; rather it references the process of creativity they share. For dancers to be able to hurl each other about like this there has to be trust and here it almost becomes a third character in the show.
Flesh and Bone wonders about attraction and relating within ambivalence. Psychologically speaking, the show could be asking whether it is the opposite in another that compels us, or does attraction lie in recognising a reflection of ourselves? At times Denborough and Van Dyck could be lovers, but more often than not they are children, breaking rules and playing, playing, playing. As a man and woman in conventional attire they perform a balletic tango which could have easily been a clowning parody of a formal expression of romantic passion, but here the dancers go deeper into a level of traditional communication and a most accessible part of the work becomes redolent with emotion and a singular dignity.
Flesh and Bone avoids literalism or ‘making statements’, touching most lightly on politics. Circus and carnival references come to the fore with the two balancing on balls, seemingly taking things desperately seriously, then collapsing this mood with balloons, testing each other’s limits both emotionally and physically. Without making direct allusions they capture a world of early exploration, that of bodies and roles and of things around them, reacting with an irresistibly childlike, dreamlike attitude. A delightful surrealism takes over an anarchic domestic scene where fettuccine is roughly made and semi-consumed, leading into a wonderfully simple finale, its mood completely opposite to that of the opening.
An unpretentious, witty and memorable work.
Ratings: 3 ¾ stars out of 5
KAGE present
Flesh and Bone
Performers: Kate Denborough and Gerard van Dyck
Composer: Kelly Ryall
Costume Direction: Lisa Gorman
Special Effects: Simon Bainbridge
Set Construction: Hans van Dyck
Stage Manager; Alice Fleming
fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne
7 – 24 March
