Dance company junk ensemble uses its
piece Five Ways to Drown as a means
of grappling with the issues arising from the confining nature of quotidian
life. With a captivating set and a poignant combination of dance and
acrobatics, the performers draw the audience into their tale of relatable,
day-to-day battles.
The
piece follows five characters in their attempts to go about their daily lives
and the struggles that they face in doing so. It opens with each character
performing a different task behind clouded glass while a voiceover of the
youngest dancer cites a long list of ways in which a person can drown. The
characters are composed of a diverse array of people who each proceed to drown
in their own way throughout the piece in the process of going about their lives.
The youngest boy (Joshua Dyson) portrays the younger self of a middle-aged man
(Eddie Kay). Also performing are twins Megan and Jessica Kennedy, who portray
members of Kay’s family. An older woman (Ingrid Nachstern) appears occasionally
as well, starting out very domineering and becoming more sickly as the piece
progresses. The dancers alternate dancing by themselves and in groups, thereby
establishing the relationships between them all.
The
set and costumes play a strong role in creating the context of the work and
drawing the audience into the story. At the back of the stage is a glass wall
separated into panes that the audience can see through at times, but which at
other times are opaque. This quality puts the audience into the mindset of
those who suffer from mental illnesses such as depression, who occasionally
find their lives clouded by their illness. Three of the panes are also screens
on which images are projected while performers are inside of the old-fashioned bathtub
that is at the forefront of the stage. While performers are in the bathtub,
interacting with water and flirting with drowning in a more literal sense,
their images are displayed on the screens, showing how the feeling of drowning
can be magnified beyond the normal range of emotion and seem too immense to
handle. The audience is given a very striking sense of suburbia by the floral
dresses worn by the two younger women, as well as the couch and wallpaper of
the living room segment of the scene and the front porch stoop located in front
of the glass paned wall. This sets the story in a hyper “normal” situation,
rather than a broken home or other extreme circumstance where one could expect
people to be overwhelmed by their situation and feel as though they are
drowning. This honest and telling setting lends the work a sense of validity
and realness that it is hard to escape in such a typical and relatable space.
Throughout
the course of the performance, the characters each get lost in the drudgery of
the day-to-day aspects of living their lives and maintaining human
relationships. Even mundane tasks like putting up wallpaper are overwhelming
for each of the performers. First the older man, then the young boy, and
finally the twins, attempt to place several strips of wallpaper high up on the
wall, but none of them are particularly successful. Several different tactics
are implemented, from using a trampoline to standing on one another’s
shoulders, but the goal of a fully wallpapered wall is never achieved. This act
of attempting to cover the wall consumes most of their energy but produces no
real result, speaking to the sense of futility that a person feels when they
are depressed or metaphorically drowning. There is a constant sense of
confinement throughout the piece as well, which is at the root of the struggles
of the characters. At one point, two of the characters literally tie themselves
together and perform a duet in which every motion that one makes affects the
other, thereby limiting the range of motion of each of the dancers. After this,
the two sit on the porch stoop and practice tying knots, reinforcing this
symbol of confinement. Additionally, more knots are created through the
partnering during the trio between Kay’s character and the twins, in which
their bodies all become interlaced. This human knot confines the three people
involved to their given circumstances and the people with whom they are
interacting. These interactions show the relationships between the characters
and how these affect the overwhelming sense of imprisonment felt by them all. During
the trio, each of the dancers repeatedly steps on the other two in order to
raise themselves higher. They cannot reach these heights alone and so they
depend upon these relationships with others to progress, but they must
literally step on other people to get ahead, a trait that does not lend itself
to healthy relationships. Moreover, when Dyson’s character attempts to return
to a task that he has been routinely performing, the twins stand between him
and his goal. No matter how hard he throws himself into the task of reaching
this goal, the twins obstruct him with a nonchalance that is unnerving. This reminds
us how even the people who we are closest to can confine and impede us.
Though
all of the dancers give sincere and skilled portrayals of their characters,
Joshua Dyson’s performance is the most evocative and gut-wrenching of them all.
As the youngest performer by far, one might expect less of him than of the
other dancers who have far more experience. However, he dances with a maturity
that exceeds his years. He finds a delicate balance between strength and
fluidity and, time and time again, demonstrates his skill as a dancer and, more
broadly, as a performer. He commits to every movement with what seems like
reckless abandon, but is actually intense self-control. Each time he is thrown
to the ground by the twins or leaps through the air with what appears to be a
death wish, the alarmed audience is drawn further into his tale and grows more
attached to his character.
Five Ways to Drown is a compelling
piece, though it leaves some aspects of its story insufficiently addressed. There
is some ambiguity as to the nature of the characters and how they relate to one
another. At some points, it seems as though the young boy is the past self of
the man, while at others it seems like he is more of a son figure. The absence
of the older woman throughout much of the work and the contrary nature of her
actions—first drilling the boy in an authoritative fashion and then standing,
sickly and motionless, staring into the bathtub—raises questions about her role
in the story. This ambiguity in the relationships between the characters
detracts some from the message of the work as a whole. Additionally, not enough
context is given for the final scene, in which the characters expel water from
their mouths while dancing to a far more upbeat melody. It appears that the
characters have managed to overcome the confines of their day-to-day lives, but
it is unclear how they have done so, making it seem almost random. This final
moment would be more triumphant if there was a discernible event that had
caused it.
Despite
the ambiguities, Five Ways to Drown
is a gripping account of the dark side of the average and the mundane. The
piece illustrates that even people who seem to have everything going for them
can suffer and feel as if they are drowning. One cannot escape or separate
oneself from the past either, as the man cannot detach himself from his younger
self. Thus, we may be doomed to repeat past mistakes and become entrenched in
an unhealthy routine. The act of living and going about routine tasks can be
insurmountable for people at times, and junk ensemble has striven to address
this actuality in a new and innovative way.
~Alana Reese
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