It's not often you go to see some contemporary dance and are told to don the white trainer socks you have just been given by the ticketress, dump your stuff and make your way onto the stage. We had assumed that this might have been a voluntary option, but every potential audience member was to follow suit. Moments later, we found ourselves in a dark ultraviolet landscape, foreboding music in our ears, wondering what fate awaited us, Before long, people without socks emerged from neon corners, grasping at our ankles and using us as helpless props enveloped in their gnarled contortions.
Fleur Darkin, inspired by the complex decisions and improvisations that happen on dance floors every Friday and Saturday night which are used to seduce; impress, get bought drinks, help you forget, show off etc, aimed to make Disgo a collaboration between the 'official' dance and the inadvertent choreography of the audience close by. Rather than asking the audience to interpret the performance from their seats, this was to be an altogether immersive and participative experience for them.
To the industrial soundscapes of the likes of Plastikman and Fourtet, this was quite unlike any disco we'd ever been to. The dancers were not unlike zombies as they moved quite menacingly in their bandage-like costumes. The ripping up of gaffer tape off the floor introduced an interesting sound texture at one point and revealed neon lines for us to be placed on as the dancers, and some previously hidden in the crowd, stepped out with some formation moves.
It was definitely an interesting standpoint from which to see contemporary dance, but our attention did slip due to the amount of following around we had to do to keep up with what was going on and in feeling decidedly on the outside of things, rather than collaborators we were meant to be.
