Review – Mutual A-Gender
Mutual A-Gender is a showcase in two parts – “Milkshake” by Sarah Ling, and “Gay by Nature” by Nick Walters, both of which explore gender and the nature of its representation – and performance – in society.
“Milkshake” was shown as a video production, which felt like a bit of a cheat for a Fringe performance, but one in which Ling cleverly juxtaposes the hyper-sexuality of modern club dancing with Victorian peep-show nudity (and its comparative innocence) and dance for the sake of the silly fun of it (to Kanye West’s “Monster”, of all things). I was a little mystified by the use of Kanye’s “Black Skinhead” in the piece, though – it’s a track that comes saturated in its own politics, and it looms larger in Ling’s work than the collage she puts to it.
“Gay by Nature” was substantially more promising. It opens with a video loop of a boy, suspended by his feet, twisting in discomfort. It’s a slow, torturous and unsettling start, furnished with brooding instrumentals that make the scene positively Lynchian in tone. Walters then emerges and, underneath the screen and hidden in shadow, performs rhythmic bench presses to the boy’s contortions.
If you’re going to channel Lynch, you need to have a sense of humour about yourself; luckily, Walters understands this, and his performance is darkly hilarious. When the stage lights come up we see him as the picture of heightened masculinity – dressed as batman and with a comically impressive six-pack – which he then discards to perform his gender in several other exaggerated forms. Here he uses screen images and live dance towards a show which comes across as one gleeful snark against anyone who would judge him by his gender or sexuality.
Fun, contemplative and loud, Mutual A-Gender provides an interesting mixture of dance and contemporary art. And while “Milkshake”, for its lack of any live component, might have worked better as a part of a gallery exhibition than a live show, Nick Walter’s honest and energetic performance makes it all worth seeing.
