One real-life couple (Benedikte Onarheim Smith and Matthew Onarheim-Smith) has perfected clumsy, awkward, and fantastic. They peel the lid off customary performance, in their semi-autobiographical duet. These two international dance artists are letting their feelings out!                                                                                                     

“It’s important to let your feelings out-” Benedickte tells us, “-when you need to, in a safe space, not in traffic.” She encourages Matthew to let his feelings out. “That’ll be hard for a Kiwi,” she notes. I say encourages; but he makes a face as though she’s commanded him to plunge into icy water. She hands him a heart-shaped cushion, it’s his to ‘kill’. He jumps on it. He throws his whole weight into jumping on it. “Like a little girl on a trampoline,” Benedikte drily observes, bending to pick up the cushion. But he snatches it first. “I can do it,” he insists, running up the stairs for momentum. Unfortunately, Martyn Roberts (Sound and Lighting) cautions him from the dark. “Health and Safety, Matthew. You know, can’t jump off steps.” Benedikte takes the cushion and shows him once and for all how it’s done. She poses herself in the centre of the stage, gives herself a moment, and then, shrieking, doubles over and bashes the cushion against the floor with pure fury. She’s glorious. I, myself a Kiwi, envy her catharsis. Sometime after releasing her anger, Benedikte confirms for us yes, she does have Viking blood.                                                                                                                                         

“The audience expects dancing.” Matthew tells her. “Why don’t you do some dancing?” As she obliges, Matthew provides a running commentary. She spins in an organic flow in her lycra tights. “Floor stuff.” Matthew looks at the audience. Her dance evolves and Matthew takes a chair. “Walking stuff,” he says. Then, “Swooshy stuff.” “I just touched my hair,” Benedikte points out, “you can’t do that. You can’t do that in dance.” This performance is an idyllic and refreshing dégustation of what-you-can’t-do-in-dance. The technician, Martyn, is conspicuous. We hear him tread heavily in the lighting rigging above us. Matthew draws the black curtain, the backdrop for the stage, and exposes him killing time on his cellphone. The audience loves these crimes against staging. 

Often, the couple reverses or exaggerates gender stereotypes. Matthew’s pitch rises to an insane frequency, he’s got the jitters. “Where does the sex go?” he asks on behalf of the audience. Or his pitch lowers to a monotone bass, and with it, his openness. “It’s hard,” he drawls, “to express my feelings.”: a parody only acceptable in such a multi-actionary body.                                                                                                                                                                                                              Again, “We love each other!” they repeat in chipmunk voices. They’re on the verge of hysteria, like wound-up toys, like lemmings. I know this act is meant to be a farce, but I find it sweet: this sentiment with all the juice bleached out of it, glittering, shivering, demonstrated in two exhausted, live-wire bodies. Perhaps it struck a chord. “When you have children you’re just really tired all the time,” they confess later in the piece; again, jittering. The audience gets it.                        

Benedikte continues to deflate Matthew with an imaginary pull cord whenever she feels he is getting carried away. Ironically, he worships her for letting the animal out in him. We all do.                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

In one poignant sequence, after Benedickte has deflated Matthew and he lies comatose, she takes his phone from his pocket and sets the screen to show one eye blinking. She holds the screen in front of her face. The resulting Cyclops is uncannily believable. When Matthew comes to, he crawls under her chair, enlarges himself, and lifts her and the chair clean on his back. On hands and knees, he carries her across the stage. We watch him carry her. Perhaps more than literally. Even after all their bickering. Can it be?       

These are two gifted dancers, strong dancers, equally graceful, conceptual, and animal. They head bang, twirl lifts, and pack the best party moves – here are two young parents with not one Mum-move or Dad-move between them, of course. The juicy soundtrack belies clever physicality and smart discourse: a must-see. This Piece Won’t Change the World just might.   

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