Musical @ Zoo Southside

Internationally acclaimed Scottish choreographer Colette Sadler works from a tradition of modern dance almost as far removed as you can get from showy West End productions. So why does her latest piece bear the title Musical?

Far from imitating a typical musical, the piece is a “critique of entertainment”, deconstructing the normal relationship between music and dance. Through the choreography, it pulls apart and puts together “how gestures make sound and sounds make gestures.”

The piece begins with nothing on stage but a large plank, covered in a silver sheet. From behind this, footsteps sound: now fast, now slow, now from the right, now from the left. Finally, Sadler emerges, in tap shoes, and continues to cause the tapping footsteps as she makes a round of the stage before retreating behind the plank again. So far, the relationship between sound and movement is normal. The next time she appears, however, the tap shoes are gone — but the tapping sounds continue. Just after each footstep sounds, she steps, no matter how fast or slow they go. So movement and sound are divided: a sound comes from behind the silver plank, while its (usually causal) movement is separated, spacially and temporally.

In another section, the theme is (loosely) inverted: usually silent movements are imbued with artificial sound. Sadler places squeaky toys in strategic places in the costumes of the three other dancers so that as they move, they create sound. One dancer stands still and silent in the middle of the stage then lifts her right leg to the side, producing a loud creak as though her hip joints need oiling. The interaction of the dancers and the different squeaking sounds are hilarious, and rather musical.

“I worked with Austrian composer and musician Noid on this piece and our interest was to find a place where musical composition and dance could become one and the same. In actual fact, the whole choreography can be read from the point of a musical score.” This is evident at the end, when the dancers bring out four loudhalers that have been recording the sound created by the choreography in the previous section, set them to play, and dance to this “musical score”.

Sadler states that “with this title I am deliberately provoking multiple interpretations of the word 'Musical'.” The piece demonstrates that movement can be musical not because it is done in time to music but because it creates music. And it proves that a show can be musical (i.e. rhythmical) without being a musical; in fact, it can be musical without any music, in the traditional sense. But it also raises some questions: can movement be musical if the sound is temporally or spacially separated, or if it is removed completely?

If this all sounds a bit too serious, don’t worry. Sadler reveals that her “inital inspiration came from the Brittania music-hall theatre on Argyle Street in Glasgow, tap as a popular form of dance and the films of Jaques Tati and Monty Python."  And with tongue in cheek, she includes references to the classic musical Oklahoma’s choreography and snatches from its score: she just gives them a twist. Finally, she assures that “it is unusual that dance and performance are really funny but being funny was one of the aims of this show—I myself enjoy a good laugh and we had a lot of fun making Musical." This shines through in the performance, and means that the audience has a lot of fun too.