In GLITCH WITCH, choreographer Meg Stuart, dancer Omagbitse Omagbemi, and composer/musician Mieko Suzuki enter a stage that’s made to look like the surface of a rave moon. Half-buried disco balls, black glitter gravel that sticks to the performers’ clothes, uneventful white noise music and monochrome lighting create the feeling of a cold uninhabited place.

Here the atmosphere seems to be toxic, or why else would the performers wear something that looks like masks or virtual reality goggles? Maybe these protect them from the effects of the air, but it looks like these goggles also allow them to explore realms of which the audience is unaware. Eventually the performers remove their masks and their bodies start to contort and move as if in a sped-up silent comedy. Whatever they saw or breathed now seems to be affecting them.

I smile to myself. Maybe this planet is made in the image of Buster Keaton’s face, devoid of any emotion, black and white, untouched by the imminent danger. This thought comes upon seeing Mieko Suzuki falling on her belly and blowing a raspberry, making the glitter gravel fly around in a childlike slapstick move. For a split second the dancers also find common ground, like when they all point to one of the disco balls.

Soon after, however, their bodies once again break out into uncoordinated exasperated movements. The landscape remains dead, the music loud and uninterpretable. In a way it seems like the performers’ sine wave that dips in and out of connection is detached from the planet despite its particles sticking to their clothes. The performers start play fighting, but their shouts are muffled by the loud music. The glitter gravel particles that got stuck soon fall while the dancers shake and wiggle.

After a long glitch episode of uninterpretable speech the three women find back their language. They change to colourful clothes at the front of the stage while engaging in small talk. This slice of life moment feels like an intermezzo where the performers break the fourth wall. Omagbitse Omagbemi is supposedly shy to be topless while Meg Stuart tells an embarrassing story about getting period stains but the women don’t react much to each other. This change of pace is also happening outside of the gravel glitter zone, on the periphery of uninhabitable landscape.

While the moment is appreciated by the audience who laugh and clap, it seems to have little to do with the dance performance. It doesn’t strengthen the relationships of the women, it doesn’t engage with the dead landscape – this is what they’re like backstage. So when they soon go back to the rave moon it seems like they’re also detached from what is happening to them, they’re just performing movements with no emotional relation and no inquisitiveness to what it all means.

“If we focus on the glitch that constantly brings these women out of touch, where’s the feeling of utter dismay?”

When watching Buster Keaton, his lack of emotion in the face of danger is something that makes us laugh and wonder – maybe his cool cluelessness and inability to panic is what saves his life. In other words, Keaton’s lack of emotion has a very clear connection to the story that he’s telling, he’s alive because he’s so cool. But what about here?

If we focus on the glitch that constantly brings these women out of touch, where’s the feeling of utter dismay? Where’s the annoyance that comes with glitches we experience in everyday life, like your laptop getting stuck while writing something important? What about when you’re having a call with a friend and the screen is freezing? It drives us mad. It reminds us how much is taken away because we’re not writing with a pen on paper, because this friend is overseas and not next to us.

Juxtaposing the dead landscape with hyper-alive bodies that twitch and contort isn’t meaningful in itself. The questions that seem to be posed at the beginning – Is this planet dangerous? Are they affected by what they saw or breathed? – remain untouched. And so it’s hard to come to any insightful conclusions about the relation of the performers’ bodies to the space they’re in.

© Laura Van Severen

© Laura Van Severen

© Jubal Battisti

© Jubal Battisti

© Jubal Battisti

However, even if I take the planet as just a backdrop to the twitching bodies, I remain empty-handed when it comes to deciphering what their movement means apart from limb spasms. The three women do hug on stage but their points of connection dissipate into disconnection without much emotion. Even when embarrassing stories are explicitly shared they don’t evoke a reaction: no compassion, no laughter, no counter-story, no movement.

“It’s hard to come to any insightful conclusions about the relation of the performers’ bodies to the space they’re in. I remain empty-handed when it comes to deciphering what their movement means apart from limb spasms.”

This lack of acknowledgment of the emotional response that any glitch causes takes away the agency of the women. They just undergo these glitchy movements that at random moments bring them in accord or discord, they’re not fighting for or against. On top of that, the relation between the space and the dancers is unexplored, and so with time the stage degenerates into a landfill of baubles and glitter as if after a consumeristic Christmas party.

Because of the lack of intent it’s not enticing to watch these bodies move, there’s no relation to be found. The movements are hollow, just like the buried disco ball peaks that have no weight underneath the glitter gravel.