Tijen Lawton, flying above the cast of Infamous Offspring. Photo: Flavia Tartaglia
It’s good to know that the gods quarrel and nitpick among each other, the same—or more dramatically, anyway—as mortal families do. Dad gets called out by mom for philandering. The kids argue about which of them is their parents’ favorite. One dreams about being born without her contorted feet, and walking and running normally. Yet another’s body is inhabited by her father so he can fornicate with another sibling.
In Infamous Offspring, choreographer Wim Vandekeybus and company sort these speculative nuggets into a multimedia, many-scened opus that plays out on screens, on butcher paper as art created live, and through exhiilarating movement, all backed by a varied sound track of rock music and samples (Warren Ellis/Dirty Three, ILA). It bears a certain wild, unhinged punk sensibility shared in sui generis works by Belgian troupe Needcompany, where key Ultima Vez performer Tijen Lawton performed for years, with their live rock-scored crazy quilts of drama and movement.
Lawton scuttles onstage, ambling like a crab, scooting forward on bent knees with her hands. She reaches a waiting length of butcher paper hanging from a roll, and begins to draw one of several pictures done throughout the piece. A cheesy silver droid appears onscreen, tapping and skittering his fingers across the tabletop. The company of 11 filters onstage, at times hurtling high and barrel leaping, each doing their own crazy thing. One man is told to kill everyone else, and so he does, fake choking and stabbing his siblings. Their parents appear on a higher screen, a pair actors treading the wire between Shakespearean and high camp in a minimalist dwelling.
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| Photo: Dries Vanderaerden |
Dancers scale the lower screen on perpendicular pegs we can’t see, a kind of modern Mount Olympus, from where they observe their spatting brethren. The lower panel later splits into five, creating an effective array of portals and smaller screens. As we were warned in advance, there are many acted depictions of rape and violence, often performed in a hyper, exaggerated anime style, but there’s no questioning the dedication by the performers. Lawton in particular stretches herself, literally, walking as if on malformed feet, drawing several works of art, and getting thrown aloft by the other dancers four times. All the dancers were heroic, Adrian Thömmes and Lotta Sandborgh particularly fearless and savage.
It’s a kind of full-out, propriety-be-damned melange of dance/theater that once was a hallmark of BAM’s Next Wave, and other venues. (In fact, Ultimate Vez performed there in the late 20th century.) There is little likelihood that a work such as this would be produced by Americans, particularly in this fake-pious era of Christmas pageants and country music. It evokes a period in performance when art was the most outrageous thing happening, not reality.
It’s a kind of full-out, propriety-be-damned melange of dance/theater that once was a hallmark of BAM’s Next Wave, and other venues. (In fact, Ultimate Vez performed there in the late 20th century.) There is little likelihood that a work such as this would be produced by Americans, particularly in this fake-pious era of Christmas pageants and country music. It evokes a period in performance when art was the most outrageous thing happening, not reality.
While there is an urgent, portentous overtone to the work, it winks at us repeatedly—the video of the silver man clattering away at his desk, or hammering with shoe heels, the chastity belt-like contraptions donned by everyone that look more like childrens’ Halloween costumes, the arrogant parents who seem right out of a Bergman film. The taste level might be questioned, but the dancers’ skill and absolute physical commitment is definitely not.
