Snuggled up in the Burton Taylor studio last Tuesday (made even cosier by the removal of the front row of seats) I was treated to What Songs May Do – the first full-length production by acclaimed choreographer Matthieu Geffre. Set to a series of Nina Simone songs, What Songs May Do tells the story of a gay couple (Paolo Pisarra and Oliver Chapman) whose relationship is in tatters. We are introduced to the characters, and then they engage in an awful argument, reflect on the hopeful, heady beginnings of their love story, and a short-lived period of light-hearted domesticity, before things went awry. Will they rediscover the value that they brought to each other’s lives, or is the damage well and truly done?
To say this is a technically demanding piece is perhaps an understatement. Over the 60 minute run-time, Chapman and Pissara both orchestrate wild leaps, twists and balancing acts with profound precision and control. There’s slow subtle, tensed movements, and there’s sweeping, balletic turns and lifts that push them across the stage. All are performed masterfully. It’s fantastic to watch, and a reminder of the wonder choreography can evoke when pushed to ambitious heights. Also astonishing was the unity with which the two performers danced, transcending mere cohesion to move together effortlessly, as in sync as a V of birds overhead.
Rendezvous Dance, the company behind What Songs May Do, billed the show as ‘an inclusive dance piece celebrating love in all its diversity’ – somewhat confounding, not just because the story of two presumably cis white gay men is not really representing all of love’s diversity, but also because the show isn’t especially concerned with queer references.
Really, the two central characters could have been anyone at all. But then, the ambitiously broad phrasing here is perhaps quite fitting: as a show What Songs May Do has an unabashed thirst for profundity, and has chosen universality as its method for reaching it. But the problem, so often, with aiming for universality is how it quickly degrades into anonymity: speaking to everyone is speaking to no one in particular.
While the coherence Chapman and Pisarra move with is phenomenal, I found myself longing for some differentiators between the two characters. Their individual personalities remain frustratingly opaque throughout, undercutting the potential for moving and engaging chemistry. Some of the artistic choices also felt laboured – several consecutive minutes of the performance are danced with the performers’ mouths wide open, as if silently screaming. Likely added to underline the conflict, the effect instead was distracting and bewildering.
Elsewhere, an extended sex scene is danced with a roughly three feet distance between performers, with one dancer’s forward movements absorbed and reflected in the backwards movements of the other. This is clever and well-executed, but after a moment, feels oddly clinical. As an audience, we understand what the movements are meant to represent, but do not feel the emotion conveyed. This sex scene portion of the piece was performed in just briefs. Prior to its long and carefully laboured movements, we watched the dancers remove each other’s button-down shirts in a tender, unhurried moment shared on one corner of the dance floor. It was an interaction that felt effortlessly sensual and real, holding the audience rapt in the charged energy between these two characters.
The scene immediately following this one (and a quick costume change) also succeeded in exuding the energy it intended to convey – the sweet, early days of living together, abundant with potential and playfulness. The scene so joyfully and obviously embodied its theme, and it made me wish fiercely the whole piece could have matched its level of clarity.
Now, I understand interpretive dance is meant to be open to, ahem, interpretation. I respect that a certain level of ambiguity needs to be embraced. However, I think allowing the audience further ways into the piece could have underpinned its strengths, rather than overwhelming them. There is a lovely solo danced by Pisarra in the middle of the piece that would have had more impact on me if I’d realized sooner that he was echoing an earlier dance the two performed together.
By the end of the show, I didn’t feel I knew either of these men or their inner worlds much better then after the first dance, despite the show hinging on its apparent intimacy and the skill and commitment of the dancers, who, lacquered with sweat by the end of the show – leave everything out on the dance floor.
The piece started its life in 2015 as a twelve minute performance, which Geffre then expanded with the assistance of dramaturg Andrew Gardiner. This long gestation period is evident in the intricate and complex choreography – it’s just a pity the story’s texture and specificity didn’t develop apace.