Giannandrea Poesio

Shock and awe | 18 June 2011

Two weeks ago, the unsettling proximity of a perfectly sculpted naked male butt with my nose made me think again about the critic/artist relationship.

Two weeks ago, the unsettling proximity of a perfectly sculpted naked male butt with my nose made me think again about the critic/artist relationship. I am talking, of course, about Dave St Pierre’s much talked about performance of Un peu de tendresse bordel de merde! at Sadler’s Wells, the raunchiness of which attracted and dominated the interest of various media for a few days. Chastely translated into ‘a little tenderness, for crying out loud’ — although a more appropriate translation would be ‘a little tenderness, for fuck’s sake!’ — the 2006 work, like many other examples of modern day dance- theatre, relies considerably on shock values, although it also includes some excellent choreography.

Being a child of the Sixties, and having grown up with a now much idealised avant-garde, I take no exception to nudity, not even when it is so literally in your face. After all, St Pierre’s naked artists, running amok among the audience while begging to be tickled, are not that different from the naked artists of the 1960s/1970s Living Theatre, who tied themselves to your seat and asked you to remove strategically placed ropes to reclaim your viewer’s place. True, St Pierre opts for a more displacing shock treatment as his infringement of the fourth wall is full of that rebellious dark humour that many late postmodern performance-makers like so much.

Before the guys strip down and jump off the stage, a dominant, snarling ring- mistress warns the audience that their role in the performance will not be an entirely passive one. And so the people’s response to the wide range of vocal and physical provocations generates a lively performance within the performance. I loved the way some alpha males looked embarrassed by such an overt objectification and ridicule of the male body.

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