FLIRT
FLIRT is essentially about the way one person can move another and how a given persona or posture or even voice can be clarified in such an encounter. The performers – dancers and musicians – pair up in various combinations without necessarily attempting to constitute a duet. Their pairings may be said to prolong moments of extra curiosity and greater sensitivity, when the perception of the other is still somewhat hindered by various handicaps, be these physical or perceptual, just before two become one. And it might be said that in this process of listening, transforming and responding – the very elements of seduction – their charisma or mesmerism assume clearer contours.
In part, this new work continues the turn towards elemental means that Alexandra Bachzetsis began to explore in A Piece Danced Alone, premiered in 2011, which is rather deceptively titled as it involves two dancers who repeat, reflect and replace each other, so as to create a certain confusion between one and two persons. In this earlier piece, the two female performers – at once physical twins and stylistic opposites – energized each other as they watched and learned from the other’s moves. Somehow, their very distinct styles came into sharper relief. For Bachzetsis, the experience pointed to the vast potential of working with a quality that is as difficult to encapsulate as it is impossible to dismiss in compelling performance: virtuosity.*
A number of questions arose: How can a performance be choreographed or improvised to foreground something as elusive as virtuosity? What is the role of learning and repetition in bringing this quality to the fore? How might performers with very specific and distinct sensitivities and skills interact and enhance each other’s presence so that their flair becomes more perceptible to themselves to the other and to those who witness?To lend structure to what is essentially an experiment in expression and coexistence, FLIRT adopts the musical form of the canon. While this term is derived from the Greek kanon for ‘measure’ or ‘rule’, the form it names is far from rigid in appearance, enabling a contrapuntal, polyphonic composition that employs two or more concurrent voices in imitation and elaboration. Without such structure, without rules and measures, certain freedoms of movement (which arguably define a virtuoso) cannot be perceived.
When Bachzetsis recently assembled her cast – these are musicians and dancers, personalities that can sway each other, and each has a different school under his or her belt, different streets under his or her feet – they began to form the basis for the development of the new piece. At one point, a dancer and a drummer put on blindfolds and as she moved and he played, they began to appear more clearly... The name of the new work also crystallized here, and there was no doubt that such duets of perceptive expression would continue to shape FLIRT.
*Curiously, in today’s “web 2.0 world,” where everyone is an iParticipant, the notion of virtuosity is loosing its footing to a kind of undifferentiated amateurism. It might be worthwhile to note that while the cast of Dancing was not comprised of professionals, their task and passion lay in perfecting singular moves. In a similar way, though raising the stakes somewhat through the participation of professionals, FLIRT is concerned with the horizon where skill approaches a sublime dimension.