Dance
VOID
Tramway, Glasgow
Mary Brennan
four stars
RELENTLESS traffic noise.The sudden screech of metal, crumping on impact. VOID’s decibel-intense soundscape immediately anchors us in JG Ballard’s Concrete Island. His 20th century Robinson Crusoe doesn’t land on some tropical shore: instead the wealthy architect, Maitland, crashes off the motorway and is marooned on a rubble-strewn outcrop that’s off the radar of the planner’s highway network.
VOID, with its hybrid mix of video/sound design (by David Bernard) and movement (by dancer/choreographer Melanie Forbes-Broomes) is more a distillation of Ballard’s writing than a literal re-enactment. If you know the story, you’ll appreciate the salient references that weave through visuals and movement alike. No prior knowledge of the book is necessary, however: this Tramway commission is structured, delivered and directed (by Bex Anson) with such pummeling force that its narrative of survival in a brutalising, arid environment is viscerally clear.
The large stand-alone screen is already pulsing with patterns– think white noise for the eyes – when Forbes-Broomes tumbles onto the narrow confines in front of it. Her first stretches are a wary test for injuries.Nothing broken, except her way back to (supposed) civilisation. Sloughing off her business clothes, she morphs into an acrobatically lithe, near-feral, being who battles to escape – even turning the now-irrelevant high heels into crampons and attempting to scale the screen. She fails. Her individuality gets increasingly absorbed into the shifting backdrop of colours, lines and jiggles that delivers an abstracted calendar of sunrises and sunsets. She’s trapped in a limbo, her cries for help swallowed by the ear-splitting meld of music and noise. VOID assails you, unnerves you on many levels with Forbes-Broomes unstintingly at the heart of the risk-taking. Homeward-bound, your eyes stray to what’s under those concrete flyovers...
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here