Monster Body

Monster Body by Atlanta Eke is an astringent, muscular challenge to the tired and repressive cliché of feminine mystique. The show opens with Eke hula-hooping and wearing nothing but a dinosaur mask – the first of many alarming images. Sometimes bizarrely hilarious, at other times extensive and demanding, Monster Body creates a set of unforgettable scenes and soundscapes. A silent scream is juxtaposed with formal ballet poses, a creature with a koala's head is given tumours and natural functions are cleaned up and fumigated by a man in sanitation gear. Monster Body doesn't allow for comfort, insisting on its audience meeting with something dark indeed, but it is a sophisticated and well developed piece, one that is completely unique. The female performers are naked rather than nude. A grotesquely funny sequence has the dancers as cheerleaders clad only in trainers and black hoods referencing images from prisons or slavery; they dance a routine to the Britney Spears song I'm Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman. The finale (if it can be called that, since the show doesn't end, it simply stops) involves a parody of a lap dance, where Eke paints her face and keeps on painting it with neon pink then confronts the audience with her raw response to the moribund sexualisation of the female form. An intelligent and astonishing dance work.

Dancehouse (finished)