Who is Cerberus, where is Cerberus, who is impersonating Cerberus amongst the seventeen dancers who make up the cast? Is anyone guarding the gates of the underworld or are they all complicit? Ben Duke’s deadpan take on the classics leaves a trail of questions as he questions the classics and mortality in his usual serious but not serious meta-theatrical way. There’s something of the everyman about him with his rough and ready style.
Orpheus and Eurydice are called after the performers, so it’s Aishwarya (Raut) who walks boldly from stage right (life) to stage left (death) and Antonello (Sangirardi) who pursues her with miner’s headlamp and coil of rope.
We also have a compère of sorts, a foreign language interpreter and a BSL interpreter (Clare Edwards very much part of the ensemble and she is a hoot). A live drummer (Romarna Campbell) pulses the action and dance along, whilst Jackie Shemesh’s misty lighting creates the mood.
In funereal black (costumes Eleanor Bull), the performers sit and listen to the explanations, then, tied together by a long rope, race from one end of the stage to the other on a loop—that’s life for you—on and on it goes. How many different ways can you walk and run—the choreography is observant—towards death?
But why are they racing towards death? Sorry to spoil it, but death is not funny. Ben Duke is funny, tongue-in-cheek funny. Laughter to keep inevitable death at bay. Cerberus premièred in May 2022—that was an auspicious year for COVID deaths—maybe that’s why it’s dance merry-go-round reminds me of the medieval dancers in Ingmar Bergman’s Seventh Seal set during the fourteenth century bubonic plague. Plus ça change…
Interval. On return, we are asked if we enjoyed the interval bar. Yes, of course, the light is up, on all of us. Duke’s Goat (2017) castigates us all for making a mess of the planet, for the lies we tell and are told. But, why Goat? Scapegoat? Here a sacrificial animal in human form to heal all our sins—it is The Rite of Spring with Nina Simone replacing Stravinsky. The beat is good to dance to.
In a modest village hall (set & costumes Tom Rogers) a meeting takes place to choose the one. This is an important event: there’s a reporter, with photographer Joseph (Kudra) in tow, on hand to relay proceedings to us. She (Angélique Blasco) is tactless, a bit naïve, and in their faces, which are projected on a screen stage left. “Look”, she says from backstage, “there’s no underworld”.
“The Revolution Will Be Televised” 2012 TV satire? Or is it referencing Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”? Duke is nothing if not abstruse, but his lines zing with stand-up comic satire.
But where to look: at the screen, at the performative BSL interpreter, at the musicians and singer (Sheree DuBois) interpreting Simone’s iconic songs, at the dancers who dance in a hunched shifting huddle before spreading out into a semicircle whilst a blindfolded Musa Motha steps into the centre light? Is he the shaman who has the power of insight? His spinning, tumbling, searching solo is striking.
Jonathan Wade is chosen, stripped down to his underwear. Covered in Post-it notes—the crimes he is to expunge with his sacrifice? Angélique intrudes insensitively on his fear. “What’s it about?” “Metaphysical hyperextension” is what I hear, but I could be wrong. “What emotions are you feeling?”… “It’s a challenging time for Jonathan”. “How long to dance yourself to death?” “I don’t know, I’ve never done it before”.
Does Jonathan die? His partner lifts him up from under his black shroud and they dance a touching love duet. The reporter takes his place. Is this wishful thinking on Duke’s part or a metaphor?
Duke prosaically says, “in the village where I was brought up, there was a tradition on New Year’s Eve of writing on a piece of paper two things you wanted to rid yourself of—it could be something bad that had happened to you, or something bad that you had done. The pieces of paper were placed inside a can, which was tied to the tail of a goat. The goat was supposed to disappear over the horizon and take our sins with it. Usually, it ran for five seconds or so then stopped to eat some grass. Some years it came running back towards us…”
The literal and the satirical, movement and emotional song—Simone’s “Feelings” sees us out—there’s a lot to unpick in two short pieces that make for an enjoyable evening. My nineteen-year-old companion says it’s the best he’s seen in a long time. The Rambert dancers, as usual, nail it for me.
Both dance theatre pieces seem to owe much to Pina Bausch, and as with her modus operandi, Rambert credits the dancers’ input: “both pieces are recreated for this tour by Ben Duke and Rambert dancers Adél Bálint, Angélique Blasco, Simone Damberg Würtz, Max Day, Conor Kerrigan, Joseph Kudra, Naya Lovell, Musa Motha, Aishwarya Raut, Antonello Sangirardi, Alex Soulliere, Dylan Tedaldi, Jonathan Wade, Archie White and Seren Williams.”