Review: Lurky! Lurky!

Lurky! Lurky!

Samuel Beckett Theatre

***

Flagged as a "choreographed live edited dance film", Emma Fitzgerald and Aine Stapleton's performance piece is as ambitiously all-encompassing and disconcertingly vague as the description implies. Beneath a giant screen, the two dancers lie naked beneath a fabric-covered frame: to a soundtrack of ambient sound and old hits, mixed by John McMahon aka Djackulate (ahem), the pair writhe and crawl, the minimal light rendering them as eerily disembodied forms from a Francis Bacon painting. Meanwhile, filmmaker Ian Cudmore manipulates a kaleidoscopic array of images, from deceptively idyllic scenes to extremely intimate close-ups and even satirical skits.

Similarly the dancers shift the mood as they glide around the stage, undercutting any erotic charge with goofy comedy – chanting “mickey stiff” – or bracing commentary on body image and sexual exploitation. This barrage of sight, sound and movement is at times overwhelming, and the performers occasionally teeter close to parody in their explorations of sex, objectification and mortality. But their sheer chutzpah stands out, resulting in a show by turns provocative, subversively funny and undeniably memorable.

Ends Sept 14