AH/HA: a review

One second the house lights are on and the next it’s the stage lights. That’s all it takes for the audience to instantly quiet down. The five dancers of Lisbeth Gruwez’s AH/HA are already onstage – we could see them before, immobile in the darkness – but their bodies do not follow the switch in lighting; they are moving, we must eventually recognize, but so slowly that it is almost imperceptible.

Lisbeth Gruwez's AH/HA

Faintly at first, a squeaking sound can be heard over the speakers, as though someone were repeatedly jumping up and down on a mattress. The knees of the performers follow suit, bouncing up and down. As they explore the effects of laughter on the body, it is mostly through this up and down shaking that they will manifest themselves at first. Laughing movements (if we can call them that) are isolated, repeated, and amplified until they become dance movements as performers roll on the floor or spin through the air.

As they congregate, they fist the air with such energy that their arms become blurred. They hold their smiles until they look downright creepy. It is only then that laughter becomes audible, enough to make the audience jump out of its skin, as the dancers laugh excessively, incessantly, until they are flirting with madness. Laughter is contagious, they say; and so it seems as audience members laugh at this exuberant display.

The yellow lighting that takes over the stage is so thick that it seemingly covers the performers’ faces with makeup, transforming their skin into wax that, mixed with their sweat, looks as though it’s melting. They look deformed, monstrous, grotesque. One of them squeals like a pig, or like a laughing person.

As they silently laugh in slow motion, the soundtrack should be loud enough to hide the sounds that their all-too-real bodies make in order to maintain the eeriness of the scene. Lionel Richie’s “Hello” comes through the speakers as the dancers walk towards us and the lights fade. The audience chuckles rather than laughs thanks to the tacky song, but AH/HA deserves a stronger ending, one that demonstrates the same level of commitment to its premise that the rest of the show did.

Januray 28-30 at 8pm
Usine C
www.usine-c.com
514.521.4493
Tickets: 32$ / Students or 30 years old and under: 24$