The two men paw and hug each other. The taller one picks the smaller one and swings him around. Or is he now a she, helpless in the face of male physicality? Is it a moment of exhilaration or an act of aggression? You have to read the signs in the latest from Gameshow in a piece in which male-female relationships, tenderness and violence, surrender and resistance melt into each other.
Dancing Bear is a two-hander with three people: the two men (Matt Ryan and Matthew Evans) are a live physical presence performing as both male and female while Hannah Ringham offers a deadpan, sometimes surreal voiceover delivered through headphones directly into our ears. She ruminates on the differences between men and women’s bottoms, a man physically wanting a woman and vice versa, how the dance sometimes turns bad between the sexes. Behind her voice there is a dreamy soundscape – rain on the roof; the announcements at railway stations – that makes you think of romantic movies, but which is often at odds with what we see.
It begins with the men completely naked – so we can be in no doubt of their sex – but gradually boundaries blur as gender is performed, and emotional coercion and physical control come to the fore. Ryan and Evans respond to Ringham’s voice. Who controls the performance? The movement isn’t always sharp and striking enough and more levity wouldn’t go amiss, but it’s an hour that gyrates and reverberates with questions about how men and women interact.
- At Wolverhampton Arena 18 February. Box office: 01902 321 321. Then touring.
