Saving Face by Si Rawlinson at The Place

Phrases by Paula Riofrio.

Has your thoughts or physique damage so badly that you just have been unable to do the stuff you love? …and wait, you continue to must go to work.

Saving Face delves into the skilled and private battle of humanhood. Multifaceted artist Si Rawlinson choreographs the life of 4 characters throughout working schedules and after workplace encounters. The clock marks, with stress, boredom and repetition the laborious hours of the 4 protagonists: a choleric but sanguine lead supervisor, a brand new exploited worker and two outdated, reasonably shameless, colleagues; carried out by Yukiko Masui, Lisa Chearles, Jamaal O’Driscoll and Rawlinson himself.

The strain was completely threaded by romance, bodily gags, storytelling and choreography. The dance composition was an ethereal abstraction of feelings even contained in the extremely pedestrian context of an workplace. Early profession, Lisa Chearles, undertook the function of Jackie. Her first solo was a routine of dynamic staccatos expressing her muteness. Because the story developed, her motion promptly related the viewers to her ache, concern and exhaustion. Sam, Rawlinson’s character, externalised his emotions out and in of the pores and skin. His physique relented to the moods on his head, discovering an outlet via a hip hop based mostly however non-limit-by motion. Leslie, embodied by Yukiko Masui, dissolved the boundaries between appearing and dancing, bespeaking-displaying the depths of a performer.

The present left me questioning if there’s a want for catharsis in each efficiency. For those attending theatre in seek for deep feelings, as medication, sure, however there are different audiences. A dance prevailing bodily theatre comedy can be maybe too generic to explain the character of Saving Face. It was a hybrid scenic recreation, and it was very a lot alive; even dealing with dramaturgical challenges. Their final efficiency at The Place, London, had 5 individuals on stage, not 4. O’Driscoll needed to alter his week-old damage right into a story. Amy, his ‘carer’ stepped onto the stage and moved alongside shadowing, mirroring and increasing O’Driscoll’s character. She was emotionally and energetically related, including a second tempo to the character. Instantly everybody contained in the stage began yelling at one another, blaming one another. Their worst nature got here out underneath strain, solely noisy and confusion. On the finish there was no nice revelation, everydaylife, the worth and the intricacy of on a regular basis life.

Saving Face leaves me with many questions. The place and for what purpose can we draw a line between our private {and professional} life? Is sentiment too free and never so moral? What does it imply to be human? Engels, German thinker, wrote concerning the function of labor within the evolution from apes into people. Finally, does work humanise or dehumanises? Comedy appears to be the one approach out, or inside on that quest. What I can inform now, is that laughing may very well be a form of cathartic course of.