Review: reservoir-pneumatic

In Liklik Pik, the only piece from George Stamos I had previously seen, he had won me over with his trashy performance and sense of humour. I have to admit that I went into reservoir-pneumatic expecting something similar, which luckily set me up for a pleasant surprise: the strength of his new work is actually its choreography.

Clara Furey in George Stamos's reservoir-pneumatic, photo by Francis Ducharme

Though it could have been more of the same. I showed up at Agora de la danse at the last minute and so found myself sitting at the back of the room, where a pair of disembodied, crossed hairy legs was poking out of a curtain. After a musical prologue, the first live image of the dancers consists of two bodies that gain an odd corporality simply by wearing a hoodie backwards. We’ve seen it done before, but the effect works every time.

And then it starts. Two of the female performers split and each dances within a clearly delimited space. Lines also appear delimited, but their legs always go beyond, whether on the horizontal or the vertical. The significant distance between the performers and their going in and out of synchronicity make the section constantly shift between a duo and two solos, creating a dynamism that impressively doesn’t rely on the gratuity of speed.

But dancer Clara Furey does go for speed in the solo that follows. She takes off her shirt and throws herself into a dance that is poignant. She looks like she’s giving it everything she’s got, even at the risk of causing violence to herself. It’s definitely a highlight of the show. She then segues into a series of moves more appropriate for a pop music video, but what might have appeared benign in this mainstream context suddenly becomes troubling when performed by a disrobed dancer who’s just given everything she had, as if we were finally able to see the true nature of these gestures.

Stamos also gets his moment to shine as a performer with a solo full of gesticulation and curves. There is another duo, this time where the dancers intimately interact, that left me with a strange impression of beauty. I believe it’s because the physical connections between them aren’t forced. They don’t grab each other. Instead, they simply lay their limbs on top of each other, their skin barely touching, leaving them free to detach at any moment, which they do, but they always end up connecting again. The beauty is that they connect not because it is imposed on them, but because they both choose to do so.

When all four of them finally dance together (the other two also deserve to get mentioned: Luciane Pinto and Sarah Williams) by constantly entering and exiting one of the delimited spaces, it is breathtaking. If reservoir-pneumatic has a problem, it’s that the choreography is so strong that everything else around it starts to look merely… good. But, who cares, the choreography alone makes it well worth seeing.

reservoir-pneumatic continues until Saturday, October 18. Tickets are 26$, 18$ for students. For more information, call 514.525.1500 or visit www.agoradanse.com.