Page 38 - radio strainer

Red Chairs
She has been turned into a pony by a red chair and a camera. She starts out in the expected way, a female body improvising in the space, discovering the space by nestling in to it. Right foot slides to tip weight of skull down , front legs ground and back hooves lift plastic torso. Ready to gallop over green grassy hills, mane flying into the horizon.
For this fraction of time, the woman and the chair have gone.
In Radio Strainer the furniture spends only part of the time in its expected role. Two red
chairs develop agency and character as the choreography evolves. The opening image of
the choreography is of the chairs, dramatically lit from below, framed by amplifier and cable, central characters in a drama that is about to unfold. As the dancers enter the chairs are used for sitting, are moved through various movement sequences (Mt Fuji, The Hills) – until they are lifted into the air and are no longer chairs, but the ridiculous heads of two despondent friends.
We found that with the Red Chairs on our heads, we could repeat unsayable things, conjure forces of humiliation too painful in other circumstances. Their shiny plastic forms allowed us to channel embodied memories of humiliation, horrors of mistranslation, plucked from small recent memories of racism, mistake, embarrassment and shame. Their somehow friendly, well-meaning and none-too-bright chair-faces transformed raw emotion to humour. Ironically, performing the red chair sequence is often hilarious for audiences, but excruciating and exhausting for performers, as muscles clench and hold, thighs harden with tension and imagination is sent to regretful places.
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