Can We Talk About This - DV8 Physical Theatre

We would happily talk about this forever
*****

REVIEW ... Sydney Opera House
by Rebecca Saffir
Time Out Australia | Friday Aug 26 2011

Every so often, a performance comes along that not only reconfigures the limits of the form, but also redefines and rearticulates how we see the world. It is not hyperbole to say that DV8’s newest work Can We Talk About This?, getting its world premiere season in Sydney, is one such work.

Combining the company’s signature extrapolation of everyday gesture into deeply intricate dance and movement with interview transcripts from over fifty individuals, organisations and broadcasts, director and choreographer Lloyd Newson and his company probe against the comfortable edges of social attitudes towards Islam in the West. Can We Talk About This? proceeds from Newson’s concern that there is a ‘liberal blind spot’ when it comes to discussing the very real potential of incompatibilities of Islamic and Western value systems, particularly as this has been experienced in Britain. From Salman Rushdie and The Satanic Verses to the satirical cartoons of Mohammed published in a Danish newspaper; from the introduction of Sharia law councils in the UK to the issue of forced marriage, Newson sets diverse opinions alongside each other with revelatory consequences.

The dancer/actors – and they really are as much of one as the other – move and speak constantly, their exquisite choreography often played out in tandem but rarely in partnership. They bounce off, roll towards, press against and step around each other, but no one is looking each other in the eye. This, Newson seems to say, is precisely the problem. When it comes to this divisive and sensitive issue, we can’t meet each other’s gaze, can’t engage in meaningful dialogue. The continuous nature of the work, each section rolling fluidly into the next, implies that unless something changes soon, we will dance around this problem forever, leaving real human casualties on both sides of the debate.

Can We Talk About This? is not full of solutions but full of questions, decidedly empathetic to the gaping chasm that currently exists in discussion. It is an invitation to discussion and a firm reminder of its necessity. Without a doubt, it is one of the most important works of our age. Go.