Dance festival closes with heady eroticism and fierce confrontation

The theme of this final day of the Moving Futures festival sounds and somewhat theoretical: self-reflection and cultural identity. But in the abundant programme, it becomes clear how directly these words touch everyone.

Macho Macho

This is immediately clear in Macho Macho by Bosnian-Dutch playwright Igor Vrebac. In it, two performers make their way through a world of male ideal images. But from beneath their display of machismo, tough poses with their beautiful bodies, something else creeps out: need for closeness, intimacy and unconditional trust.

Hands-free wrestling

Male intimacy: you don't talk about that in our society. You would be on display with it. On the bare playing floor, the performers give full rein to the feelings they evoke in each other. They measure their strengths, wrestle with each other. But there are ground rules. They wrestle hands-free. Quite a restriction if they really wanted to take each other to task, it seems to me. Your arms are the main tools with which you can get someone under. But that's not what they are after, then. They go on endlessly. Playful, but at the same time deadly serious.

Disarming contact

So while there are no real sharp edges to this fight, something emerges crystal clear: that wrestling, rivalry and toughness are only meant to make contact. A disarming contact. You read it in them as they stand there on stage recovering from all that fighting.

Vulnerable men's band

Humour seeps throughout the performance. At the end, when they have unequivocally reconciled, that humour comes out in full force. As one of them dryly takes advantage of the other, and the other, despite the peace, is a bit weighed down by it: with such an image, they beautifully show how fragile and sensitive it really is, this band of men.

Infused with eroticism

'Self-reflection and cultural identity' touches you most deeply when it comes to eroticism. The last two performances are steeped in this. They make you undergo how women can be confused by the erotic expectations their environment imposes on them.

Wild hip jerks

At ZOOM Hestia and Sheela after gig begins choreographer and dancer Lana Čoporda calmly. A woman close to herself. Movements that put her in perfect balance with her body. Then she bursts into wild hip jerks. Erotic, powerful, total. As if she has found something inside herself that passionately wants to come out.

Crazy insatiable

But the impulse from her body flows out over the entire stage space. Images of (parts of) her body are projected on the wall. Thus she is confronted with her own eroticism that has taken on a strange life outside her. The world exploits people erotically with a maddeningly insatiable vagina image. She cries out against it. But she can't stand it. The images of her own shocking body overwhelm her. They multiply. Unstoppable. Her body is scattered all over the world's screens. Overwhelming it is, but also flattening.

Lost

There is an atmosphere of being utterly lost. Even as Lana Čoporda focuses on herself and her shadow in a circle of light. Again, an image of her as she stands there splits off. On the image projection, her shadow looks distorted.

Alarming

Things get really alarming when the projector focuses Lana's own images on herself. The erotic movements she has been circulating around the world are now projected onto her naked body. They distort, no longer resembling a human being. Especially not when they return to the wall and she stands next to them. Pure, naked, herself. Completely open. What desire is coming into her now?

Being alone with your body

It is an immersive experience. Savage, rugged, unstoppable. And the latter is exactly what you want. To stand still for a moment. Being alone with your body for a moment, asking what it wants. It is admirable how radically Lana Čoporda throws herself into this struggle.

Geisha's Miracle

Very different is the way choreographer Jija Sohn in Geisha's Miracle elaborates the female quest through the absurd erotic maze. Again, an ambiguous atmosphere of pleasure, desire, show, tears and flashy eroticism, but much more enigmatic than Lana Čoporda's. Icy movements and shiny costumes give the three Asian dancers something unapproachable.

Glass fairy tale

When they start putting on a show with guttural punches and chants, it feels like a glass fairy tale being shattered. It spills over into howls and frenzied screams. It comes across as shrill. At the same time, you feel a sultry sensuality creeping around.

Ritual fire

Yet the mystery does not go away. Ritual acts with fire make you feel that there is something you can't reach, that they won't let you into. In everything, I feel there is a double layer. Earthy pop vocals, headbanging, voices like sandpaper, a sexy show, a woman standing on two subdued predators. And then they return to those slow movements of the beginning. How different you look at that now!

Workshops

Two workshops are part of the festival. Participants do exercises with parts of the choreographies that will be shown afterwards. The workshops have a special purpose. As participants have experienced elements of the performance first-hand, the perception of what they see in the performance becomes deeper.

Vibrations through your body

In her workshop, Jija Sohn goes through exercises she has done with her two dancers in making Geisha's Miracle. All the senses open up. Making voice sounds, feeling the vibrations going through your body, mixing your voice with those of others, touching, feeling, seeing. In this way, the space is experienced with extra intensity. Then comes the second exercise. Repeating a word together quickly and rhythmically makes speaking a physical experience. The words deform, flow naturally into other words. The partitions separating words are opened.

Sharp sense

Except for guttural sounds, the exercises are not literally in Geisha's Miracle reflected. Yet the workshop gives you something of a keen sense of sensibility that sensitises you to the surreal atmosphere of the performance.

Shake your booty

By way of participatory journalism, I participated in the workshop Shake your booty by Lana Čoporda. She thoroughly introduces you to shaking your pelvis. It also involves the other parts of your body. I don't just have the suppleness to let all the shock waves pass smoothly through my body. But a fierce energetic feeling grows in me with this exercise. And above all, I experience that all kinds of moods, from happy to raging, can rise in my body with these movements.

Recognition

Of the latter, I recognise much in ZOOM Hestia and Sheela after gig. I undergo it intensely as I watch Lana Čoporda skillfully move into the sex game with her superior shaking hips. The cosy mood slips away, giving way to confusion, anger and longing for silence.

Dancing response

It is an intense evening. Once again, dancer Junadry Leocaria gives instant body feedback on what she has seen after each choreography in the foyer. It's nice to recognise elements each time, even though they are very different in her fluid style, with those dazzlingly flashing arm gestures each time!

Building a literary bridge

To build a bridge to other art forms, Moving Futures invited writer Fatima Jamai to attend the festival. She will be featured in a short Q&A during the break. She attended workshop and performance by Lana Čoporda. With the experiences she gained in this, she hopes to start describing contacts between people also in their erotic aspect.

Moving Futures has come to an end, at least in Amsterdam. Four days of being immersed in surprising dance, talking about it and thinking about it: I got a special overall experience. And also the conviction that many people will feel inspired by it, whether they know about dance or not. Fortunately, the festival is coming to seven more cities. For the dates, see the overview of Moving Futures.