Soccer's been through a grueling time recently. The world game's governing body, FIFA, rife with corruption, has lost a whole lot of faith. Their blatantly self-aggrandising film starring Gerard Depardieu (a man whose name I'll not hear sullied) redefined what the phrase 'bombed at the box office' means. But maybe there's some good to come of it. Perhaps it's because of the enduring beauty of the game that the scandal is so outrageous. The people will not have it!
Sydney performing artist, filmmaker and soccer player Ahilan Ratnamohan is one who's gliding right on by such earthly foibles, like Messi down the wing. His new show, SDS1, produced alongside Performing Lines, is an unapologetic and intensely physical blend of soccer and dance. "What I find the most interesting about football," Ratnamohan says, puffing, straight out of a run of the show, "is how paradoxical it is. For all the joy and ceremony that is celebrated, there's some ugly stuff that happens. The game can do that to people."
"Footballers are put on pedestals and promoted in this position of immortality."
This idea of soccer as an ambivalent force has been explored in Ratnamohan's two previous soccer-themed works, Michael Essein I Want To Play As You... and The Football Diaries. Those, however, were driven by narrative, whereas this one, under the influence of Lee Wilson at Branch Nebula, is a touch more abstract. "I try to take the audience through the experience of a football match, but one that's a bit more poetic and a bit more surreal. At the same time, I go through my own match, but it's more of a psychological battle than a physical battle.
"I have always been interested by all of the cultural, physical and social aspects of the game, but particularly the machine of football's elusive beauty. I can express myself with the ball at my feet, but if you look at the statistics, a footballer touches the ball for about three minutes, on average, in a match. The rest is just this relentless battle to stay mentally on top of it, to not get down about mistakes."
Ratmanohan deals with accusations of soccer being a kind of epic 'lad' melodrama in the most positive way possible: through showing it as a platform for the human condition. "Footballers are put on pedestals and promoted in this position of immortality. The amount of money they make, for starters, but also the amount of worship they get. I always thought, though, that deep inside there is a vulnerable person there. I wanted to put that warrior in front of the audience and get rid of all the fluff and the marketing."
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Great real-world examples of this vulnerable warrior, for all their own flaws and contradictions, he says, are players like Johan Cruyff, Zinedine Zidane, Brazilian polymath Socrates and Marco Verratti. Their mix of physical brilliance, mental tenacity and social engagement make them ideal symbols both of soccer and its crossover into art.
Ratnamohan will make a crossover of his own. He'll present a series of community soccer workshops alongside the show, proving the game's beauty transcends whatever political and economic games its administrators might be playing.
