Shock and awe | 24 October 2009

In the Spirit of Diaghilev
Sadler’s Wells

Inbal Pinto & Avshalom Pollak Dance Company: Hydra
Queen Elizabeth Hall

In a dance world asphyxiated by a lack of inventiveness, it is refreshing to be confronted by creations that can still provoke, shock and amuse. This is the case with Javier De Frutos’s Eternal Damnation to Sancho and Sanchez, premièred last week at Sadler’s Wells amid audible and visible signs of disapproval and approval. Regarded by some as a gratuitously offensive publicity-seeking stunt, the work is more than a mere succès de scandale. The graphic sex, the near-blasphemous use of religious motifs, the phallic-centered iconography of Katrina Lindsay’s sets, and the in-your-face violence are but developments of thematic features that have always been part of De Frutos’s aesthetic. Think, for instance, of the memorably gut-wrenching, dramatically powerful, blood-soaked naked male duet at the end of Grass. De Frutos is a politically angry performance-maker, who knows how to make bold statements through an art form that has long lost any boldness. His critique of a religious establishment that imposes absurd and socially maiming moral principles while indulging in all sorts of sleaze, together with his intentionally in-your-face portrayal of violence, are ways to expose and comment on issues we hear of and read about every day, but do little or nothing about. What truly disturbs the viewer, though, is that the horror of a pregnant woman garroted by a rosary after having her faced smashed on the papal throne and the electrocution of the lecherous and deformed pope are combined with unsettling humorous ideas — see, for instance, the ‘amuse me’ neon sign that descends like a divine message from the sky, or the final, village-fair-like fireworks that accompany the death of the pope.