Disgo

Last week the Traverse Theatre was visited by the Fleur Darkin Company, an ambitious contemporary dance group from London. Bringing with them their ingenuity and novel approach to the theatre, they were presenting a new work entitled Disgo.

It is a difficult and powerful experience that succeeds only through a remarkable combination of technical virtuosity, strong conceptual layout and fearless creativity: Disgo is one of those rare cultural moments where your whole reality undergoes an unsettling transformation. Though it should be said that Disgo may have an easier job on this front than many others: it's main conceit is an invitation for the audience to come forward and experience the show from the stage itself.

At first this technique appears to be a gimmick for sensationalism, and there is a feeling we may be about to be subjected to an hour of self-indulgent nonsense. However, after a mere five minutes, this is quickly understood to be far from the case. Disgo's main strength lies in how it utilises this notoriously volatile stage technique. With a variety of strongly original methods of disorientation the audience are gradually turned from cynical onlookers to passive participants.

At first we are dragged about and clung to, before being arranged in lines and made to move around the individual dancers. This is achieved by various plants in the audiences dressed in their civvies. You get an uncanny feeling that everybody else except yourself is a performer, and by the end of the show, everyone is. The passivity created in surrendering your body to the directions of the piece mean that at the show's climax, when performers involve you in their solos, you cannot help but respond and engage with them.

However, perhaps the most powerful aspect of the show's unique landscape is the intimacy it affords the audience with the astonishing solos from its performers. The show succeeds not because of its amusing technical trickery, but through a bedrock of affecting writing fleshed out by solid performance. Experiencing Fleur Darkin's exceptional approach to dance at such close proximity was electrifying. Indeed, the companies all-round competence makes it hard to pick a stand-out dancer, though special mention should be given Karla Shacklock, and her passionate drive which brought the show to it's culmination. This is radical theatre that accomplishes it's seemingly insurmountable ambition, something, sadly, which is all too rare.