What I Saw: Bests of 2009

Since there's no way to avoid making a graphical list of Bests of 2009 in a single post, I've decided to release my choices in a series of posts instead. These are in no particular order except the one that's being imposed by time. This year, I've tried to write something about each show, not so much to explain my choice, but to force myself to articulate one thing that was of particular interest about each. I manage to write a good bit about some and not so much about others. This isn't a reflection on the quality of the show, but on the quality of my attention and with at least one of the shows, the fact that I wrote things down directly after seeing it.

To Be Straight With You - DV8 Physical Theatre, directed by Lloyd Newson.

I don't know where to begin. To Be Straight With You is devised around 85 one-on-one interviews and 200 street interviews reflecting on the topics of tolerance, religion, and homosexuality. The first interviews of the evening focused on people expressing homophobic viewpoints that were often fueled by Christian or Muslim belief and often ended in either advocating violence or engaging in it. Movement sequences were created around the interviews, some of which are played in voiceover while some are performed by the dancers. Digital animation and video are used to create environments and to illustrate various stories. Many of those interviewed, especially people from ethnic groups with strong religious ties, asked that their identities not be revealed because they feared the consequences if their community found out about their sexuality. These anonymous interviews were sometimes depicted using animation to black out the dancer's body, effectively erasing that person.

The show spends a good bit of its time focusing on homosexuality in the muslim world. In one story, Ankur Bahl portrays a 15 year old boy who was stabbed by his father and brother after he came out to them. The the boy's story is made all the more poignant by Bahl's ebullient delivery of the text while doing a rope skipping routine that gets more complicated as he reveals ever more harrowing details. In a later sequence, Bahl and another dancer perform a duet in classical bharatanatyam form to Shakira's Hips Don't Lie as Bahl, playing an Indian man who is married with three kids, explains why he loves to dance and how he has hidden his dancing and his long-time affair with another a man. These two moments stand out for the exquisite beauty of the dance/movement and for the way they reveal the joy and exuberance of the person telling the story. Newson balances very grim statistics and personal accounts with these movement sequences to illustrate the ways men and women confront and manage their identity in the midst of intolerance and violence.