High fives

There is no doubt that BareBones’ The 5 Man Show will stay vividly in the memory of any dance-goer

There is no doubt that BareBones’ The 5 Man Show will stay vividly in the memory of any dance-goer — and for a long time, too. This fizzy, moving, hilarious, corrosive triple bill is an ideal celebration of the company’s fifth year. Its five artists — numerologists would have a field day with such a recurrence of ‘fives’ — hypnotise the audience from their very first appearance, taking each viewer through a cogently formulated rollercoaster of emotions and vibrating theatre images. More significantly, the whole programme restores the long-lost faith in contemporary dance, physical theatre and dance theatre, showing that somewhere art, whether it be with or without a capital ‘a’, is still vibrantly in the making.

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Performed in the round, the show starts with a kaleidoscopic series of filmed images projected on the dance platform. Intended as a celebration of the company’s work, the film, by Neil Nisbet, is a more than fitting overture to Arthur Pita’s …And Then Gone, an equally captivating and mesmerising work that draws intelligently and creatively upon the latest theatre dance and physical-theatre formulae. Clad in impeccable tuxedos, and all sporting matching shining shoes, the five interpreters appear one by one on the performing space in the first part of the work, entitled ‘the play’. Once there, and after having exchanged greetings, they start a pantomime game of seduction with the audience, a game that addresses cleverly and humorously a number of disparate issues, such as representation of masculinity, sexuality, male eroticism, homoeroticism, etc.

Being a collaborative effort — the performer’s individual contributions are acknowledged in the programme — the work stands out immediately for the way each dancer achieves full ownership of the set movements.