Places, please or, Would I want to live there?

Just about anything can influence one’s response to a performance. Did you arrive tired or alert, hungry or overfed, last-minute or in a leisurely fashion? And there are external considerations: what’s the venue like? Are the staff welcoming? How are your sightlines?

Spring Forward adds another, larger, location-based layer to this idea. Every city that hosts this annual European dance platform has a distinct character and exudes particular flavours. Inevitably, if not always obviously, these factors can exert an impact on those who attend.

For me, Spring Forward 2023 was a treat and not just because the quality of work was high. The event also rekindled my fondness for Dublin. Some of that affection stems directly from a work-related visit made in the mid-1980s. I was, for reasons long-forgotten, down in the mouth; nothing to do with the city, just my own psycho-emotional baggage. Dublin, however, was so accommodating of my mood that I realised I was actually happy to be depressed there. I’ve never felt such a combination of feelings, or states of being, in any other place since.

Dublin today seems bustling and vibrant, more culturally diverse than I remembered, friendly and manageable. I wonder what it’d be like to live there.

Similarly, at least at a stretch, every performance creates for us a similarly definable atmosphere, whether that is inviting, alienating or something in between. What brought this notion to the fore was the conclusion of Atlas da Boca, in which two naked trans performers spoke with beauty, warmth and imaginative authenticity of their concept of heaven on earth. Watching, and listening, I jotted down words of longing to myself: ‘I want to live in that heaven, have a place in or piece of it.’

And so I’ve decided to rate Aerowaves’ 2023 roster of works in terms of the stage world each manifests, be that literal (in terms of design, lighting, and sound), spiritual or metaphysical, metaphorical or moral.

The basic question is: Would I want to dwell in the creative realm conjured by the artists responsible for each of the following performances? Here goes…

DAY ONE

Wired: No. A solo too murky and weird.

Welcome: Strange trio but, strangely, yes!

Believe: No. A duet too intense and, for me, even hallucinatory.

Rapunzel: Uh, no; fabulous though the solo performer is, I don’t know that I’d want to be trapped with her in the shallow, clay swamp her character occupies.

Birdboy: Beautiful, magical, haunted, sad solo… but no.

DAY TWO

SULL’ATTIMO – In the moment: Maybe. A trio possessing a loose, limbre, peppy cool, complete with live music. But I’d need a break now and then.

Metronomia: Talk about stringent. A rather fascinating sextet that ultimately runs too relentlessly long in clockwork mode.

Cafe Müller: No. A solo that’s all about them. Scant space for me.

Toujours de 3/4 face!: Terrific, nearly psychotic-seeming solo but I wouldn’t fancy being battered by the jocularly violent character.

Figuring Age: Yes. Wisdom dispensed in a pristine environment. I might suffer a bit from carer’s syndrome in this solo + film, but it’d be worth it.

Nabinam: No. Engaging performer, but the poor dramaturgy of his life would leave me wanting.

Because I can: Maybe. An amorphous solo porous enough, I think, to leave room for me.

DAY THREE

When the Bleeding Stops: Yes! Gorgeously warm female communal healing.

Vulture: No. A solo, with live music, that’s too dark and self-absorbed.

Atlas da Boca: See above. Yes, muito obrigado.

How the Land Lies: No. Such restrictions in this LED-led quintet.

MOS: A qualified yes. I love movies, and the foleying was fun – at least until the tiresomely beating soundtrack shot this clever duet in the foot.

HOME: Hmm… No. A clean, open, discovering space but, once again, too navel-gazing a solo.

To cut loose: No. This solo’s jerky, repetitive, on-the-spot convulsions, though expressively embodied, would (and did) drive me mad.

Swan Lake Solo: No, probably, but I admire its unvarnished political wit and energy.

Hope Hunt and the Ascension into Lazarus: Fierce, complex and beautifully-delineated roving solo but eventually I might struggle with empathy fatigue.

There you have it. Just a handful of yesses, which is probably not all that surprising. Maybe next Spring Forward I’ll try the premise: if this show had a smell, or smells, what might it/they be?

Donald Hutera