Far From The Norm: BLKDOG

Joyce Theater, New York City
October 9, 2024

Drawing on elements of hip hop and street dance, and combining them with freer, often highly innovative movement, Botis Seva’s BLKDOG opens in darkness save for one spotlit individual. As they face away from us, we hear a bombardment of their mixed-up thoughts.

It sets the scene perfectly for Seva’s often brutal, yet strangely often beautiful in its way, commentary on childhood experiences and feelings; on the youth of today as they struggle with the dark and difficult world they find themselves in. A tumble dryer of a world not of their making and which they do not understand.

Although thematically very clear, BLKDOG has no linear narrative. More the 65-minute work feels like a constant looping of a labyrinthine warren of memories and experiences from infancy and teenage years. Indeed, references to going ‘back to the beginning’ are heard more than once in Torben Lars Sylvest’s soundscape that is as brutal as the choreography. Throughout, it’s industrial sounds, which include gunfire, evoke a society at war, people at war, with themselves as much as anything else, as they try to navigate the chaos that surrounds them.

To say that the dancers are terrific barely does them justice. Their togetherness and synchronicity in the unison moments needs to be seen to be believed. The costumes and lighting combine to make them faceless. Seen but not seen.

And yet, we do see snatches of individuality. Seva is on record as explaining that BLKDOG is a reference to underdogs, dark horses and black sheep. Sure enough, time and again, he places one dancer apart from the rest, often bathed in a beam of golden light that contrasts strikingly with the monochrome gloom that’s all around. It’s incredibly impactful, even if they just stand there, doing nothing physically maybe, but speaking volumes in another sense.

The work is fragmentary. The dancers prowl through its landscape. The scuttle, they run, they ride miniature bicycles. Referencing the show’s title, they even morph into dogs being led on imaginary leads, barking and howling. While it can be seem as amusing, it’s surely a reference to how circumstances, society, surroundings, can dehumanise and turn people into animals.

Gun shapes are made with fingers, although brutal violence and its results comes most overtly when one wields a baseball bat.

But those images are often followed by a moment of what feels like near remorse as the others gather around their victim. BLKDOG does have softer moments too.

It also has sex. About halfway through, a voice is heard to say, “Give the people what they want.” What follows is totally unexpected: a powerful, visceral, no-explanation-needed explosion.

For all they appear to do battle with each other, BLKDOG ultimately portrays a battle with the self. A battle with memories that have left an indelible scar of body and mind. Memories that will not allow themselves to be forgotten. All we can do is learn to live with them, learn from them, and thus make sure that the next generation has a better future.

A final thought. BLKDOG undoubtedly portray a dark, dystopian world. Yet, despite the violence and everything else it contains, I did not find it especially disturbing. Could it be that what Botis Seva and his dancers show us has become such a part of life, of news bulletins in particular, that I have become somewhat desensitised to it? Not that is frightening.