A comment performance, installation and magazine, comprise the main elements of “Frankenstein, a “transdisciplinary project featuring international collaboration under the direction of Egyptian choreographer Adham Hafez.
According to the project’s Spanish curator and “cultural researcher Montse Romani, “Frankenstein seeks to deconstruct the “grotesque notion of the “perfect body – a state achieved by dieting and plastic surgery. Hence the metaphor of “Frankenstein, the scientifically created “monster from Mary Shelly’s 19th century novel of the same name.
In today’s Egypt, it might seem clear that “perfect is a relative term, yet we soon realize that local actualities are of little bearing to the producers of Frankenstein.
Entering the Townhouse’s Factory Space, a now dimly-lit modern loft, we are handed our programs by a thin, vivacious girl in a wig and a shirtless young man in a black bowtie. Once inside, we see another good-looking girl stationed at an overhead transparency. She writes in red marker: “Hegemony, noun. The preponderant use of authority over others.
A man beside me grumbles in a British accent; “Any show I need a book to help me understand is not worth it.
The performance begins. House music accompanies a slide show. It’s a photo series of the actors we’ll soon see, recreating poses found in Western fashion magazines. They pose in cute clothes; they’re quirky, they look good, and they fit naturally in their stylish landscapes. The series loops again and again.
Soon, a woman facing a makeup mirror speaks from the back of the space: “Hello . Relax . I’d like you to think about your body. Is there something about it that you’d like to change? The same speech is then repeated in Arabic. “Is your nose too big? Would you like to lose weight? Think about who you find attractive. Why do you find them attractive? Who you find ugly . What do you think about me?
We are then welcomed to change our seats. The next unfolding sequence is called “The Anatomy of Deborah Stokes. Here, the elegant Stokes takes the stage alone, moving to Hafez’s cues. “Legs. Plainly, without emotion, she moves her legs. “Hips, “Head. With a slow, 1960s’ performance art sort of logic, the scene continues. “Take an erotic pose. Stokes then performs an understated ham of a fashion model; mimicking their angular gestures, hip jutting, collapsed spines. There is promise.
When joined by the rest of the company, however, the comedy soon departs. The remaining two men and women flounce about self-consciously, silly, sexily. Their erotic gestures mirror the familiar images of music videos – what the program refers to as “the mechanisms that generate body signs.
Meditative and repetitious numbers continue. A young man appears in a scene that occurs three different times. He slowly and seductively removes his shirt. He remains on stage, doing only this, for about five minutes. At a certain point, Ikon, the project’s co-director, graphic designer and photographer, uses video projection to simultaneously draw over the man’s image, accentuating the lines of his muscular chest. He then arises to photograph the shirtless, sunglass-wearing model. The primary, unanswered question of the evening continues to surface: And the grotesque is .? It is mostly just looks hot, hip and trendy.
While watching “Frankenstein, I recalled a production I saw by African-American choreographer Bill T. Jones, who used a “mixed-bodied company of dancers to explore the subject of body ideals and societal norms. A woman, weighing about 135 kg and as agile as her lean, muscular colleagues, performed a silent, moving dance solo that in no way overtly referred to her weight. In New York’s context of competition and body awareness, she seemed to say “We are people too with every movement.
However, “Frankenstein, does not rise to a fraction of this poignancy. With its cast of thin, handsome actors, the proposed “deconstruction is doubly lost when its performers – with the exception of Stokes – are not actually willing to ever appear grotesque.
“Frankenstein appears to be its own monster – it exalts the very images it claims to deconstruct.
Many seemed to agree. “I think they have a lot of ideas, but they don’t know how to realize them, one man said. His partner, a 20-something woman in a stylish outfit, was less forgiving: “I didn’t like it at all. There was nothing useful about it.
“It’s all about the surfaces of the body, which in my opinion are the least interesting part, a young British man elaborated. “I’d rather watch the circus. The Egyptian circus here . has an acrobatics team, a mother and daughter. The mother does not wear the hijab and the daughter does. This reveals much more to me about the complexities of body and self image in this culture in a completely unmediated way.
Though the project claims to be culturally specific, it wholeheartedly merges with privileged Western ideals and dilemmas. Where it seeks to be intellectual, “Frankenstein mostly reads as pretentious; concepts, after all, don’t always make good theater.
As for deconstruction, it requires ordered constructs to begin with: yet in a city where most people struggle to put food on their tables, the vain, anorexic body is hardly a pertinent monster.
“Frankenstein is showing tonight at 8 pm at the Townhouse Gallery. Tel: (02) 2576 8086
