The World of Two

There are many ways of shaping the relationship between two moving bodies onstage. They can partner each other, sharing or passing the leading role back and forth. They also can compete, as if proving their individual capacities, or interact either synchronously or in dissonance. In three works shown at Spring Forward Festival 2024, we had the chance to watch choreographies focused on two women performing the potentialities, layers and dimensions of their own bodies.

The game played out in REFACE, by French collective Les Idoles, is one based on appearances but the images produced by Chandra Grangean and Lise Messina are often false. They strip and peel off layer after layer of artificial skin, clothes, wigs and makeup only to subsequently use these same materials to transform their organic selves. Merely by using tape they change the lines of their noses, the expression of their eyes, the shape of their faces. The performance fascinates by combining conceptual simplicity with the abundance of effects this concept generates. Les Idoles toy with our culturally-trained admiration of female pulchritude. One moment they are attracting our gaze and at another – such as when the two eat the foil they’ve scrapped off their faces – bringing us to nauseating disgust. And all of this with coolness and precision.

The tensions between the body’s surface and form are brought to the fore in The Sculptresses by the Polish collective known as sisterhood practice. The women artists of the title were responsible for work that was often overlooked by a public more interested in the male masters. Weronika Pelczyńska and Monika Szpunar persistently repeat these women’s names and the titles of their pieces. Using words, they try to carve in our flesh thin hollows where the memory of these artists could be preserved. Speaking, humming and giggling, they sculpt into their own lively bodies the figures that the artists once scraped out of cold blocks of stone. The choreography, with its impressive lifts and precise partnering, demands mutual awareness and trust. These qualities emanate from the two dancers with a gentle warmth and touching  sisterly energy that transcends blood ties.

Although tenderness is also evident between María del Mar Suárez (aka La Chachi) and Lola Dolores, the dancing and singing duo in Taranto Aleatorio, the vitality vibrating through their performance is rapid and exhilarating. Dolores sings the words, but their content seems less important than the flow between the pair. Maybe they complain to each other, maybe they fantasise together, maybe they argue bitterly. It’s unclear who gives rhythm to whom, or who inspires who. Ultimately it doesn’t matter. This work gripped the Spring Forward audience, its flamenco rhythms resonating in our bodies and stirring up joyful laughter.

REFACE, The Sculptresses, and Taranto Aleatorio are very different from each other in style, choreographic strategy and the manner in which they invite us into their respective worlds. What they have in common is a harnessing of the power a female duo exudes in performance. This strength comes from the hypnotic accuracy of joint movement, the support that bodies provide for each other and a holding of space for the flow of an emotional as well as physical dialogue.

Zuzanna Berendt