Radioactive Practice is structured like a wrestling match. A squared-off area with the audience on four sides. Scenes not as sequences but as bouts of activity, accompanied by sports-hall sounds: grunting, panting, the squeak of sneakers, yelps of encouragement. Each round separated by brusque musical intervals that serve as much-needed breathers for the six performers, who clear the arena; and for us, who stay transfixed in appalled fascination.
Why fascinated? Because the movement crunches together shards from different sources – aerobics, krump, combat, pop, athletics – without ever smoothing the joins between them. Because it’s so brutal: yank, hurl, heave, drag, slam. Because it demands so much stamina. Because there’s no illusion: what you see is what you get.
Why appalled? Because it’s effortful, exhausting, relentless. Because it looks painful: you wince at how wearing-out it must be. Because it feels like ambition without purpose, drive without end, work without pleasure, fight without freedom. Because all that seems to tap a truth about today.
Hence: transfixed. ●
Sanjoy Roy’s trip to Montpellier was supported by Agora, Cité Internationale de la Danse
