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>skinworks by spell#7 / bodies in flight >reviewed by jeremy samuel >date:
26 oct 2003 >tired
already? go home then |
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A large screen hangs over the open space of the Esplanade Recital Studio, unsettlingly empty with its seating stand dismantled. On the screen are windows - as in the operating system - a projection, you realise, of a computer screen that stands at one corner of the stage. The audience huddles in a corner of the space. Beyond the screen, five of six performers mill, then start moving, running across the stage, touching an imaginary wall on each lap. They take turns to sit at the computer, manipulating the windows on the screen, each of which contains a short film clip. The people in these clips are no one you recognise - the images are grainy, and at first you think they might be the performers, but upon closer inspection they turn out to be strangers. The windows are labelled, and most simply do what they say on the box - one called "Stacy stomping" shows a woman - Stacy, presumably - doing just that. A man called Ben removes all his clothes in a remarkably unerotic striptease. And so on. |
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>>'The trademark Spell #7 elements are there - quirky humour, intriguing soundscapes, a sense of urban desolation.' |
After a time, the performers lead the audience, who have up to now been standing, to chairs arranged haphazardly across the space. One man goes around taking pictures of individuals, while the other actors tell us what they are looking for. These are scraps of nothingness, like personal ads from the far side. Kaylene Tan falls over constantly as she speaks, taking a few steps then stumbling. A tall man with wanker's pallor describes his dream woman as sweat beads on his forehead. |
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What SKINWORKS
does give us is a deep feeling of the vulnerability inspired by love.
"When I come, I hurt," says one young man to us. "I
bruise when you think about me. Don't hurt me any more." The
performance ends with the windows on the screen again, only now the pictures
of the audience are mixed in with the ones already there - we are
now part of cyberlove. "If you like what you see," the actors
chant, "bookmark me." I do, and I will. Find out more at www.skinworks.org |