Springback Academy 2018
Review
Homo Furens
Plan-K / Filipe Lourenço
Five ordinary blokes in ordinary bloke T-Shirts: like a lot of ordinary blokes today, most sport the beard and shaved-head look which, to me, makes them difficult to distinguish. My heart is heavy, anticipating déjà vu.
But then they begin. Oh joy! My cynical reserve is blown away. These men are GENIUS. What they do is clever, creative, witty, physical, puzzling, engaging… It’s a sort of man-sized Tetris game where chaos, miraculously, keeps giving way to order. With only their bodily strength and the rhythm of their breath as accompaniment, they embark on a strenuous, never-ending obstacle course: a human ‘cats cradle’-cum-‘feet-off-the-ground’ game. They crochet us a long, warm, optimistic human chain of abstract action. It unwinds before our eyes as a marvellous metaphor for the power of human relations, collaboration and ingenuity. Guys you have renewed my faith in mankind, or do I mean kind men. But seriously. Thank you.
Five men train. Train here has two meanings: the act of exercising, and a series of connected elements moving in a line. Lining up physically and mentally, reminiscent of a pseudo-military group, training is the aim in this artwork. Working as a team, each dancer builds a circuit where he transmits a movement (crawling, jumping, climbing…) to the next man, as if together they were a chain. Chaining together in an endless effort tests them as athletes, whereby a beautiful sense of fraternity appears. Apparently they are just performing an act of strength and resistance, but here collective cohesion overcomes individual identity. Identities engage in this satisfying bond that is inspired by Kubrick’s film “Full metal jacket” about soldier recruits. Recruiting a warm sense of collective spirit, not only for the piece, but hopefully for the whole of humanity too.