From Surgipelago, the Beach Surgery encyclopedia
The Reversal Across Skin
This article covers the 2018 choreographic work. For the concept it explores, see Karman (concept).
Tanaka's interpretation of the glitch uses bodies moving in counterpoint: one dancer advances stage-right in strict ballroom tempo while her partner slides backward across the same floor, their feet tracing the coin with one side. The spinal resonance is rendered as a low vocal harmonic that pulls the dancers' spines into impossible curves; the sound of the earth rubbing against space becomes audible only when both dancers move in synchronization — a dissonant drone that grows louder as they struggle to stay aligned.
The costume work merges Katita's red (ribbons pinned across a white tunic) with Leif's Hawaiian patterns (projected, shifting across the fabric). Centre stage: a giant wheel of corrugated steel that rotates backward throughout the piece, never forward. In the penultimate moment, both dancers move toward the wheel's edge. At contact, their shoulders begin to convulse as if the wings are rupturing from within. Recorded voice (Katita's): “"We can do it. We can do it. We cannot."” The final image is still: two figures mid-leap, frozen mid-air, lights held a second too long.
Reviewed as "a work that refuses resolution and insists on the beauty of that refusal."[1]
See also
References
- ↑ The Guardian, April 2018, arts section.