![]() The simplicity of the structure, and its readability, seems to liberate audiences. Like about someone’s partner dying and what that was like, very personal things.” “I’ve had some really diverse and very intense responses from audience members about that idea of the shrinking of time and space. Guerin was expecting the result to be “dry and clinical and abstract and geometric” but in fact, “it was a much more poetic and evocative structure than I thought,” she says. Macbeth in collaboration with Carrie Cracknell at the Young Vic in 2015. The space becomes ever more claustrophobic and their once harmonious movements ever more fractious. Ten minutes later, they halve the stage again, then again after five minutes, and so on, until the two have taped themselves into a corner, with barely room for four feet. After the first 20 minutes, the dancers bisect the stage, laying down gaffer tape and restricting their performing area to one half. Nudity aside, the real concept of Split – which came to Guerin in the shower – is based on a pleasingly simple idea. Even when their moves are matching, there are all sorts of potential stories and power-plays evolving. After a few minutes you don’t really see the nakedness any more, but you do see the clean geometry of unclad limbs and the divide between the two dancers. But after getting used to it, Steiner enjoys the feeling.įor the audience, the effect is striking. Guerin admits that nudity on stage is “fraught”, especially female nudity, and “as the person who has the power,” she felt uncomfortable asking Steiner to do it. And because Lilian is completely unselfconscious, it just felt like she was doing her work as a dancer, it wasn’t about being a victim or being sexual, it felt like a strong statement for a female body, so I really liked that.” ![]() When we closed all the curtains and tried it, it seemed to reinforce this idea of the public and private self I’d been thinking about. “But she said, if that’s the right thing for the work then I want to try it. “When I asked the dancer, Lilian Steiner, she just burst out laughing – slightly hysterically, I think,” says Guerin.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |