Review: ‘How About You’

“How About You?,” conceived and directed by Philippe Blanchard of France and Sweden, is the most recent spring presentation at N4th Theater exploring cutting edge ideas in dance and theater.  On Feb. 15 writer/poet Hakim Bellamy directed the post-performance discussion with Blanchard and performers Gabriele and Luca Stifani and lighting and sound designers Maika Knoblich and Peter Connelly.

The conversation evolved from the work’s exploration of identity and separation, as revealed in a delightful and sensitive performance by the Stifani brothers. They are identical twins, non-dancers specifically chosen by Blanchard to present a kind of natural, masculine and highly expressive movement vocabulary. They moved within an internal mental space, their gestures frequently frozen in uncompleted statements, like thoughts or memories that flow within the subconscious.

The audience entered in silence to see Gabriele standing silently in the midst of a walk, one leg lifted and one arm extended. He began to walk the perimeter of a white square of floor, creating paths in diagonals and figure eights, when Luca joined the patterns, crossing paths at first then moving together in the space. The white floor became the open space of the mind on which the brothers traversed their own journey, reacting to each other, invisible partners, and stimuli from party voices and jazzy rock rhythms off stage.

Blanchard designed situations for the performers to explore with their own improvisation, from which he chose elements to set in place, yet left room for individual evolving movement responses. Sometimes the twins seemed two parts of the same individual expressing both love and indignation with each other. In one situation Luca began to manipulate the still form of Gabriele like a mannequin, setting up poses of conflict and violence so that he looked like the victim, sliding to the floor on his back after shaping his brother in an attack position.

Music emerged gently, a creation by composer Philippe Boix-Vives, as the brothers sat and nodded their heads to the beat. As voices are heard off stage, and band music blared, the brothers reacted with strong twisting convulsing dance movement, sometimes escorting an invisible dance partner, edging away from competition, drinking from invisible glasses, lighting cigarettes, laughing or kissing.

At one point, Gabriele chattered in an Italian dialect to force more connection with his unresponsive brother. In contrast, he or Luca dissolved onto the floor as though sorrowing in silence, and the moving brother comes close to connect, comfort, or just curl around the other.

This search for oneself in relationships with others, connecting and reacting, progressed finally with a tiny birthday cake, one candle lit on a darkened stage, before the twins came to a table together downstage, facing the audience, and looking silently forward to suggest “what about you?”

Luca and Gabriele Stifani are Italian filmmakers, but they have become dancers in this collaboration, despite their denials, dancing with and mirroring each other, discovering each other in the frozen moments of gestural action – very strong performers.

The second JOURNEY in Dance and Discussion will be “MIRIAM,” by Nora Chipaumire with Okwui Okpokwasili, of Zimbabwe and New York City. The dance and discourse this weekend was inspired by the life and persona of Miriam Mekaba. The panel discussion with the dance artists will be led again by Bellamy.