REVIEW: Modern Belgian Dance

Admittedly, as a man who grew up more dealing with film and alternative music (and a few embarrassing attempts to justify myself in those areas), Modern Belgian Dance isn't exactly where you'd normally expect to find me. So a bit of background: my girlfriend studied Dance in France and then Dutch in Stockholm and is attempting to find work as a Dutch-English-Swedish translator. Through this she has two Belgian friends who, in a state of surprise as they had found something Beligian in Stockholm that wasn't waffles, managed to convince us to part with our cash and try and get some culture.

So our party of six entered, not entirely sure what to expect and, I am sorry to say, this was our worst mistake. OK, things didn't get off too badly with some beautifully fluid movement close to the ground, but after that it all became so clichéd.

There's a very good television series called "Spaced" which was directed by the chap who directed and the actors who acted "Shaun of the Dead" before they got a big enough cult following to convince someone, somewhere that they could pull off a feature. One episode dealt with one of the characters, who was an artist, dealing with meeting his ex partner, who goes by the name "Vulva", when he goes to see Vulva's new show. The problem is that Vulva's show is the very charicature of modern performance art and the writers on the DVD commentary made reference to this and how they just weren't sure what to do. Much as though modern performance art is a large, sweaty cliché, so is taking the piss out of it. Yet it had to be done, but care had to be taken to do it just the right way.

Watching Ultima Ves et KVS made me feel quite the same way. Due to my partner being so interested in dance I probably have better knowledge of it than many males in their early thirties. I've seen enough to know what the clichés are. I know what they should try to avoid. And going on the performance last night, perhaps I should join Ultima Ves et KVS so I can bring forth some of my knowledge as it really seems to have passed them by.

Let's just start with dressing everyone up in neutral shades of black and white and have them, in the half light, run up to the front of the stage and shout nonsensical statements. NO! This is the first port of call in the country of getting it totally wrong. Perhaps I am harsh, they weren't exactly nonsensical, a quick look to theonly bit on the interweb about it that isn't in French or worse tells me that "Puur is based on ancient myths and stories surrounding the murder of innocents. It begins with a fictional tale, which nonetheless contains references to today's world and recounts the life of man who kills out of fear of losing power. It tackles such themes as living in isolation, the unbearable pain of loss and fear of the unknown." I honestly think that they should hand this out on little flyers as you go in, as no-one I spoke to or surreptitiously eavesdropped on had any idea about this. In fact most of the conversation seemed to be about the guys who got their cocks out. But still, running to the front of the stage to shout something out surely has to be modern dance trick 1 circa 1994 and really has got a bit tiring by now. Maybe it's just hit Belgium, I don't know. Pity them if they have, they've just gone through grunge.

I'll admit that these guys tried to move the genre forward slightly by making the bold move from running up and down the stage to actually running around the stage like they were chasing a mechanised rabbit. And then they shouted some weird shit. "Your wife has a child growing inside her!" The randomness of that became a theme for the night and I ended up using it as a piece of graffiti in the kitchen of our friend's apartment that we went back to so as to do anything that would take our mind off the show.

I'm not sure whether to class the music as Modern Dance Trick 2 or not. Perhaps Trick 1, subclause 1. Use dull, repetative music with just a smidgeon of feedback, just to add a feeling of edge but not enough to, you know, really freak someone out. Then also do some clickly electric bits that Múm or someone could excrete in their sleep. Every 30 minutes or so throw in an actual song so as to MESS WITH OUR MINDS (TM). They're like the sodding CIA at Waco.

Modern Dance Trick 2 was definitely in attendance and boy, is it an oldie. FILM PROJECTED OVER THE DANCERS. Christ, it is like the mid-nineties never happened. Of course back then we called it "Multimedia", it was the new advertising and anyone involved had flash suits. Now it is cold, barren and an embaressment. The realm of the student who is running out of time on his end-of-term project. And this film was a cracker. Post-apocolyptic war-torn scene? Check. Kids running around trying to look weird? Check. Weird fish-eye lens closeup effects on men with beards? Check. Playing the video backwards? Check. Unusual things with animals? Check. Making no sense whatsoever and ending up protraying itself purely as an excercise in vanity? Check. And the ultimate in dodgy - not one but two shower scenes. Just to keep the audience interested.

Unfortunately, much like the dance itself I am not quite sure how to finish this. I suppose I could kick a baby's head about for a bit, throw some stones, have a good clean up and then let someone who clearly lives day-to-day on super-strength lager remove my clothes so I can walk off into the sunset with another male pal, hand in hand, naked as the day we were born. I could actually try that, although a lack of stones may mean I have to substitute videogame console memory cards. On the plus side there are no ladies here to laugh at my naked figure, unless you count my better half who doesn't suffer from the sleeping issues that are the bane of my life.

Or I could just be honest. I thought some of them could dance very well. Movement and co-ordination were top-notch. Its just that the piece they were performing touched few in my group. They were the Yngwie Malmsteen of Modern Belgium Dance. Of our number, one fell asleep, another tried, one begged to leave, one enjoyed it and the final guy was struggling to find words as he had hated it but his girlfriend loved it, so a middle ground had to found if he was going to get sex again that week.

When I was watching the show I felt like taking a quiet moment and storming out shouting "this is pretentious bullshit", but that itself could have been rather, well, pretentious. So I settled with suffering and then a few pints down the Belgian bar not far from the scene of the crime.

M Panda