DEAD - AT THE JUNCTION
Sex and death – especially the former; how better to tempt, tantalise and engage an audience? The provocatively titled show ‘Dead’ opened the Fest en Fest festival at the Cambridge Junction tonight and it was no place for the puritanical at heart. It was what used to be called an ‘X’ rated, adult spectacle. It came (double entendre intended) complete with simulated grinding and a torrent of words your grandad might deplore (except this grandad has heard it all before). The hour-long show featured Halla Ólafsdóttir and Amanda Apetrea performing as the ‘fake band’ Beauty and the Beast. Both convinced as embodiments of both sides of that particular coinage.
Before the show began, the stage manager promised (or warned) us that the performers will get up close and ‘there will be nudity’. It was at this point that your correspondent made his excuses and left, except that he didn’t. We were encouraged to remove our shoes and coats and enter a darkened area surrounded by black drapes, the flickering of many candles and the backdrop of distinctly creepy music. The two dancers roamed around the space cloaked in dark robes and plastered with sinister red and white make up. Then it was up on stage, the music got louder, the gyrating stronger, suggestive gestures cruder, long tongues protruding and much sensual licking. Later we had full nudity, simulated lesbian sex, and uninhibited erotic dance that would have embarrassed the most loyal punter at Raymond’s Revue Bar.
In between the lustful Goth/Vampire/Demoness dances we were treated to ‘pornographic poetry’ delivered in a rasping devilish voice reminiscent of ‘The Omen’. No holes were barred (this time no pun intended) and the darkest of femme fantasies were hung out to dampen.
If all this sounds a bit shocking, it was and was probably intended to be. The whole strange hour was viscerally charged and little was left to the imagination. In female genitalia terms, both P and C words were liberally sprinkled like magic dust. The prancing duo glided through the audience like a pair of slightly menacing Co-Op delivery robots and some of the fleshy choreography was done at the back of the space in literally head turning fashion. I did wonder if the show could have worked better without audience chairs, a kind of salacious promenade performance.
It all reminded this oldster of the ‘happening’ performances I saw in the 1960s but this is a good a time as any to bring a touch of bare-arsed shock and orifice to our often self-satisfied stage.
The theme was definitely ‘sisters are doing for themselves’ and portrayed in a literal sense that would not have appeared in an Annie Lennox music video. The performances, the music, lighting and atmosphere were dialled up to 12; Petrea and Olafsdottir certainly gave it all they had. In the end ‘Dead’ was a kind of triumph for those blessed pair of demons; sex and death.
