The Exploration of Multidisciplinary Cross-pollination within Contemporary Dance
An
exposed open empty space with nothing to hide leaves you in questioning anticipation.
A steady metronomic beat kicks in and prepares the space as it remains empty
with still no physical occupancy for quite a while. Just as you start to wonder
if the performer missed their cue or forgot that there was a performance
happening that night, an averaged height, slim build, Caucasian man
nonchalantly enters from the backstage left door into the performance space.
Obeying the music’s monotoned beat he responds by inhabiting its rhythmic
buoyancy in his body and interprets the hypnotic repetition into a simple but
strong medium-sized bounce in the knees with his upper torso hanged over and his
hands on his thighs to hold his torso shape. As the performance progresses the
physical intensity of his movements heightens. The movements Roque does may
seem simple at first but after a while just look grueling on the soloist’s body
as he continues doing multiple repetitions and carries his kinesphere left and
right, up and down, and throughout the whole perimeter of the stage space. Bang Bang, choreographed and performed by
Manuel Roque tests audience members mentally and tests Roque physically. How
long can the audience uphold Roque’s stage presence as they watch him
physically exhaust himself through repetition of audible rhythmic movements
utilizing the legs to locomote the space? How long can Manuel maintain his
stamina and endurance throughout his performance and most importantly keep
himself engaged and present throughout?
Roque
started off exploring multidisciplinary studies in theatre, piano and circus
before immersing himself in the dance world, performing for top choreographers
in Montreal such as Marie Chouinard, Sylvain Émard, and many others. Manuel
continued his circus practice with doing collaborations alongside his growing
career as a dancer and teacher, he soon shifted his artistic focus towards
choreography (Festival TransAmèriques-FTA). Later on, Company Manuel Roque was
founded in 2013 (Trahan, Cie Manuel Roque Danse Contemporaine).Over time as he
created new works which became part of his repertoire, he developed an organic
taste for the themes of the absurd and the nothingness (Trahan, Cie Manuel
Roque Danse Contemporaine). Roque is known for his solo repertoire, this
particular piece demonstrates a thematic framework of the contrast of
minimalism with heightened physicality that is quite prominent in the work.
However, this major theme is also explored through Roque’s past works and when
analyzed, there is a discovery of a connection to his multidisciplinary
background and personal evolution of Roque’s natural themes and use of cross-pollination
within his repertoire.
Bang Bang is
Manuel Roque’s most recent piece that was first premiered in France on March 30th,
2017 (FTA). The Vancouver International Dance Festival; which ran from March 4th-
30th, 2019, presented Roque’s work along with a diverse collection of
creations by independent dance artists and companies from around the country and
the world. The Roundhouse Community Arts Centre was one of four venues in partnership with the festival
and was a host home for Bang Bang
throughout its four show run from March 13th-16th , 2019.
This particular performance was quite a mental experience and required each and
every audience member’s full presence and attention in an undynamic way. The
second show I attended was an extra interesting and awkward experience for me.
There were not many attendees that evening and just after 20 minutes into the performance,
a couple abruptly and loudly got up and exited the theatre. I could feel my
focus being tested instantaneously. By closely observing the repetitive
patterns of his movement and hearing the constant steady pulse in the music, the
combination created quite a strong hypnotic effect. It challenged me as an
audience member to stay present in my own static body and allow my mind to
remain active, but strictly on Roque’s performance and nothing else that would
draw my attention away from him. As Roque mentioned in the post-show talk, his
intention for this piece was to test the audience by creating absurd
nothingness through adding no spectacle or special effects and almost doing
what seems like the bare minimum, which in turn challenges the audience to use
their imagination. Roque also mentioned that he wanted to veer away from
“seducing the audience” and wanted them to add their own sense of creativity on
top of his work to keep them engaged in a different way. For his performance
did not consist of a narrative and the piece overall was defiantly crafted more
towards the pedestrian aesthetic of contemporary dance, which in itself is not always
eye catching to people like myself. My advanced knowledge about Roque and his
past artistic creations made me question whether or not there was a connection
to the artist’s background in theatre and circus and how certain aspects of
those art forms might have been translated, carried over, or influenced in the
making of Bang Bang. Or was there a
total disconnect that Roque purposely planned in order to fulfill his
intentions for this piece?
In
a past piece Manuel created titled Data;
premiered on September 4th, 2014 at Usine C, Montreal, ON, he utilizes his hypermobile body to
create peculiar shapes as he performs an exploration of the regions of the
body. He reveals with force and flow the contortions entangled in having the
body stand up and sustain its balance (FTA).The
piece is also done to the classical music composition Faure’s “Requiem” and
therefore adds heightened drama and a bit of a narrative to follow. The level
of physicality is demonstrated through the athleticism of the piece and similar
to Bang Bang; Roque is left
vulnerable and is tested through physical stamina. The body is very expressive
along with his face, there is a sense of theatricality found in the vocabulary
of his impressive movements which also makes one think about a contortionist’s performance
in a circus show. Roque is accompanied on stage with a giant aluminum foil
structure that resembles a rock. It demonstrates the feeling of a deserted
island that he was intending for in this piece (Trahan, Cie Manuel Roque Danse
Contemporaine). His main themes of absurdity and nothingness is clearly
presented in this work in a completely different more eye spectacle way than Bang Bang, from the unique environment
he created on the stage to the amazing challenge of mobility and stability he
presents in his choreography. The cross-pollination is clear in his work Data and one can clearly see where
certain influences are found within the choreography, set design, and music
along with the overall concept the show originated from.
In
Bang Bang, the absurd nothingness is
explicit to the viewers because as an audience member that was all I was
thinking, how I was seeing something that was unusual but didn’t seem like
much. The absurdity came across in
the continuous never-ending repetitions that are found within the choreography,
lighting, and music. The minimalistic aesthetic was also found in all the
elements of the performance, and the heightened physicality added a sense of
kinesthetic empathy that I had towards Roque. Watching him exert so much energy
through doing what seemed like such simple movements such as bending and
straightening the knees or completing full range body movements such as jumping
or spinning made feel drained of energy. You could see that the exhaustion was
coming over Roque as the repetitions of these particular movements took a toll
on him, and the question of how long he could last remained in your mind. Just
as I asked myself, how long could he possibly keep jumping up and down, he
continued to exert himself, figuratively bouncing off the walls sticking to his
jumping movement patterns and pushes the boundaries of it. He travels vertically,
horizontally and covers the whole perimeter of the performance space along the
outer edges. On top of that, he created an intentional rhythmic tune with his
feet as his street shoes scuffed the stage floor.
For
this piece Manuel Roque worked with the idea of going against truly showcasing
oneself or expressing oneself, by eliminating any factors that would side track
his objective. La Chapelle Scénes Contemporaines Theatre in Montreal asked Roque
himself about his artistic prosses with creating Bang Bang, he stated, “I want something of the self to be erased.
We live in an era where we are compelled to show, to flaunt, to express ourselves,
… Given this, I find anonymity and disappearance to be more interesting.” He
put out a question of exploration and experimentation that is, “How can I
dance, yet disappear at the same time?” I find it interesting that he was
focusing on achieving that goal since, when I watched the performance, my mind
went in to this hypnotic state that made me feel tired and sleepy and felt like
I was in this sort of dreamy head space. My eyes were open, but I was blankly
watching passively, it took me a bit to come back to the reality of the
performance. Surprisingly, that was also one of Roque’s main intentions of the
piece, to highlight the reality of the performance.
Overall,
through examining his multidisciplinary artistic background along some of his
repertoire, I was able to find a connection of his current and past works to
his thematic framework of absurdity, nothingness, and the contrast of
minimalism with intense physicality, and compare how these themes are
demonstrated within the pieces and in what ways. Roque’s use of cross-pollination
in theatre, circus, and music is shown in different ways and is used as
inspiration in his works. Roque uses his physical body expressively and takes
his audience on a journey of absurdity. He uses his kinesthetic virtuosity to
the fullest by utilizing the freedom of contemporary dance as a platform to
help him connect his intentions as an multidisciplinary artist cohesively and
to evolve his organic thematic work within his repertoire. In Bang Bang, Roque undergoes the test of
endurance and thus fatigue emerges from the universal experience of
vulnerability.
Works
Cited
“Bang Bang.” Festival TransAmèriques (FTA), 2017,
Folklore. “Manuel Roque. Bang Bang. La Chapelle. “La Chapelle Scénes
Contemporaines,
Trahan, Marie-Ève. “Cie Manuel Roque Danse Contemporaine.” Manuel Roque Danse Contemporaine,
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