Lilian Baylis Studio, Sadler’s Wells, London
September 14, 2018
Maggie Foyer
Jefta van Dinther’s Dark Field Analysis is an intimate affair, the audience seated in a close packed square around the green carpet. The genre of the piece is difficult to categorise but physical theatre may serve for this immersive happening combining sound, text and movement.
Dark field analysis is a fascinating subject. The branch of microscopy is highly complex, investigating light and darkness and illuminating the seen and unseen. The title would suggest an interesting interaction of light and movement, but this was not to be. Although the long section when the two naked men scampered mantis-like back and forth in the strange gloom created a hypnotic unreal effect.
Microscopy also has applications for live blood analysis, but this is an altogether more duplicitous area where unethical practitioners purposely misdiagnose patients. In this performance the subject of blood enters the dialogue in a more direct form, starting with a childhood scrape then extending to an injured body leaking blood, disturbingly described as “bright, almost pink … quite delightful.”
The two men, Juan Pablo Cámara and Roger Sala Reyner, each adorned only with a microphone and single tourniquet armband, talk to each other, but while there is considerable tension this is directed inwardly in convulsing bodies with little emotion passing between the two. Much of the time they react to the other’s naked body with the naïve disregard seen in a litter of puppies. Possibly a missed opportunity with such fine-looking bodies.
The lengthy pauses between words and moves shifts the meaning to another dimension allowing mental improvisation around a single syllable until the word itself loses relevance and sounds and images take precedence. The rumination proved engaging but hardly profound. But for all that it is definitely an experience, and for those who missed the ‘60s happenings, possibly a welcome rite of passage.
Whether it is necessary for the two men to be naked is questionable, but I suspect it did the box office no harm. Van Jinther provides an interesting update on the male gaze, usually the preserve of feminist theorists, but in our gender fluid age and in the company of a predominantly male audience, the performance offers fertile ground for discussion in doctoral theses in dance academe.