Any Attempt Will End: So over-the-top, it's difficult to take seriously
In Jan Martens’s dance about protest, Górecki’s music is like a runaway train. Photo: Phile Deprez
Abbey Theatre, Dublin Dance Festival
★
To risk stating the obvious, protest music tends to be about sending a clear message. Songs vividly describing struggles for change, written rhythmically and melodically to invigorate their listeners, can dream of hitting back against the status quo. (“I'm gonna leave you with the backlash blues,” sang Nina Simone, in 1967).
In his dance about public dissent, produced GRIP and Dance On Ensemble, choreographer Jan Martens makes the left-field decision of going with the abstract minimalism of Henryk Górecki’s Concerto for Harpsichord and String Orchestra (Op. 40), a composition that is intensely propulsive, driven by repetitive patterns. It’s as if Martens has strapped his dance to a runaway train.
For instance, an opening solo sees an individual, with grave expression, extending their arms, against the cathedral drama of Górecki’s music. The hi-fi bluster is so over-the-top, it’s difficult to take the movement seriously.
There is some logic for these artistic choices. Any Attempt Will End in Crushed Bodies and Shattered Bones is concerned with oppressive regimes trying to strip people of the freedom to protest. (It takes its title from a comment by Chinese president Xi Jinping, opposing the Hong Kong protests in 2019). At one point, an establishment figure (a rivetingly creepy Tim Persent) lays out a strategy for placating the public by constantly stunning them into confusion, and encouraging ultra nationalist citizens to turn on minorities. “What we want is repetition,” he says.
The vast company of 17 dancers are each given a journey through that confusion, but the details of the choreography are often bombastic (extended, empty gestures) or clichéd (fist-punching; teary eye-rubs). The demanding beats-per-minute of Górecki’s music recalls Lucinda Child’s comment about using the same composition for her nine-minute dance Concerto: "It couldn't possibly be longer”.
It should be said that some dancer arcs seem better realised than others. We find a man on a freighted journey to becoming a ballerina (a razor-sharp Dan Mussett), and an individual posing in grim fascination with themselves (Jim Buskens). There is a keyboard warrior taking to the streets (Steven Michel).
That they are all gathered in crowd sequences may suggest the unity of a rally, but Martens even takes the wind out this idea’s sails, obsessively splintering the dancers and reassembling them, to make statements about social movements that feel heavy handed.
Neither does there seem to be any congruence to the dance’s tone. Whether it be the sentimental sight of one man (Ty Boomershine) scanning the audience in search of other people’s humanity, or the pummelling display of violent, online comments made towards women, you’re unsure whether to feel moved or be cowed.
The latter certainly feels like a strange choice for protest art. Towards the conclusion, the deft company of dancers may triumph over their sequences, which, set on replay, resemble more an endurance test. No matter how many times you see something, it doesn’t always say anything.
Ends 28th May. dublindancefestival.ie.
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