Act Conceptualisation: Part 3

Song choice

A song that I’d had loitering in the back of my mind for some time, and thought might have act potential was I Let Love In by Nick Cave. It's a dark, gothic love song. I realized the lyrics were unexpectedly synchronous with the Ishtar concept I was planning for my Dark Act. I’m a little bit of a Nick Cave fan (ok fine, full disclosure – when he played at the Civic in Auckland recently I ended up going to both nights of the gig and went up the front with the Nick touchers). So I was fairly confident I wasn’t going to get sick of hearing this song over and over while I rehearsed. Do you want to read the lyrics? Ok then, if you insist:

I Let Love In – Nick Cave 

Despair and Deception, Love's ugly little twins
Came a-knocking on my door, I let them in
Darling, you're the punishment for all my former sins

I let love in

The door it opened just a crack, but love was shrewd and bold
My life flashed before my eyes, it was a horror to behold
A life sentence sweeping confetti from the floor of a concrete hole

I let love in

Well, I've been bound and gagged and I've been terrorized
And I've been castrated and I've been lobotomized
But never has my tormentor come in such a cunning disguise

I let love in

O Lord, tell me what I done
Please don't leave me here on my own
Where are my friends?
My friends are gone

So if you're sitting all alone and hear a-knocking at your door
And the air is full of promises, well buddy, you've been warned
Far worse to be Love's lover than the lover that Love has scorned

I let love in

Dark, right? A song from the point of a view of a man who has been broken by his lover, but doesn’t quite know how it happened….? Or maybe a cautionary tale about being in love with the idea of love… ? Perfect. 

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Performing The Dark Act. Photo: Peter Jennings 

Giant wrist tassels in motion during The Dark Act. Photo: Peter Jennings 

Choreography

So I began the choreography. I’m fairly terrible at music theory, so at this point I realise that I’m confused by the time signature, which seems to be… 12/8…? Maybe? What the hell is that? For the time being let us describe it as a ‘fucked-up waltz’, because that is how I approached the track when choreographing. It felt like it had the romance and old-time momentum of a waltz, but with the extra beats threading under it like a wire, creating a kind of relentless tension. So when I perform to this song I move slowly, much more slowly than I’m used to. I move on the first accented beat mostly, and try to use the under-notes unexpectedly. There’s something about the piano in this track that reminds me of a clavichord, I can’t put my finger on it, but it feels like part of this song exists a couple of hundred years ago.

I’d been inspired by a video of the inimitable Lou Lou d’Vil performing one of her signature acts, using boas attached to her wrists. I was fascinated with how she used the boas, particularly how having them attached to the wrist was both similar to and diverged from using a boa as it’s more conventionally employed – slung around the shoulders or neck, and tossed around. This was when I though of Ishtar’s bracelets (as I mentioned earlier regarding costume inspiration) and became interested in using giant wrist tassels. 

I wanted to see how the weight and the movement of the tassels would affect my dancing. It turns out, they had a significant effect on my movements. Unsurprisingly, giving the heavier, swinging, whippier quality of giant DIY tassel, the movement of the tassels and the resultant choreography realised itself as very different to that which one would do with a boa. I loved it. I tend to dance and communicate a lot with my hands, so having tassels on my wrists added to the tension and expressive qualities I was trying to create with my hand and arm shapes.

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Performing The Dark Act. Photo: Peter Jennings 

Performance

An idea that underlies most of my acts is to intentionally set out to challenge what society conventionally tells us is considered sexy. I knew for this act I was using more or less a classic burlesque costume, so if I desired to challenge what we consider sexy with this act, I wouldn’t be relying on costume. It would be though performance, and performance only. 

I decided the particular flavor of sexy I would aim for in this act was ‘powerful... and terrifying’. Dark-avenging-goddess sexy. This was going to be fun. I was going to create a horror act without any of the usual trappings of horror – no blood, no fangs, no chainsaws, no violence. 

What’s more, if I did my job well, I knew I would hear barely a peep out of the audience. It’s unnerving as a performer if you have the audience go quiet on you, but some acts they do. It’s usually when they are really paying attention. Or it can just mean they hate the act... This is why it can be unnerving. With comic acts I find the audience reaction is usually more boisterous. However, in order to grow as a performer I have tried not to let my love of a laughing audience put me off exploring different styles of performance.

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The act itself I’m still learning to perform to it's full potential, currently it's in the refinement and polishing phase. But I love it. I'm very much looking forward to seeing how it evolves and what it’s final form takes. If you’ve seen The Dark Act, or Coney Bow’s Dancer in Green, does having an idea of the conceptual underpinning of this act make you consider the act in a different way? Is that a good thing? Or do you prefer to take performances at face value and make your own meanings of them? If you are a performer, how do you go about conceptualising your own acts? Feel free to comment!

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Parts 1 & 2 of this series on act conceptualisation can be found on the main blog page