JADAR

★★★★☆

Thick & Tight’s new variety show, Natural Behaviour, features world-class dancers, queer biological facts, and a sprinkling of political satire. Each dancer was highly technically skilled and emotive, mimicking natural creatures and queer historical figures, making for an enlightening, affirming and electric evening of dance theatre.

Natural Behaviour is unlike anything I have seen in a professional theatre setting. Boasting a variety of amazing dance, drag and satirical performances, the event felt more like something you’d experience in an alternative drag cabaret. As a lesbian who has dabbled in drag king performance, this was right up my alley.

The performance started with a voiceover announcement that it was a relaxed performance, displaying captioning as well as integrated audio descriptions (where each performer and dance is described so that visually impaired audience members can better comprehend them). I was immediately excited to see how these accessible formats would coexist with contemporary dance. While the voiceovers sometimes disrupted the flow of a piece, I found that, as someone without a dance background, it certainly helped me comprehend the meaning and backstory to each dance that I wouldn’t otherwise glean. I hope more theatrical events mimic Thick & Tight’s commitment to accessible theatre, as it usually heightens performances rather than reducing it.

The actual performances were extremely varied, with the first act beginning with Daniel Hay-Gordon (Thick) and El Perry (Tight) dressed as a disco-dancing orange pantomime horse with a blonde mane, lipsynching Trump quotes out of its arse. A thrilling beginning to an anarchic evening of camp satire and poignant dance theatre.

The rest of the first act consisted of various depictions of animals and natural objects. It is very difficult to pick any singular standouts as each piece entirely blew me away with its technical prowess and emotional depth, so I shall briefly mention some moments that stuck with me.

Annie Edwards displayed a stunning sense of metamorphosis in her interpretation of various endangered bird species. In a duet titled ‘two moths in real time’, the lighting design by Nao Nagai perfectly coincided with Thick & Tight’s fluid arm movements and genuinely looked like a moth’s wings in flight. I let out an audible gasp, at this display of dance magic at its finest. It was bizarre yet entirely entrancing. In both instances, the audio description beforehand provided information on how various species of birds and 62 moth species have gone extinct, allowing audience members to enjoy the dances in the context of these endangered animals, creating a more informed and emotive experience.

The final performance of the first act marked a structural departure. Jahmarley Bachelor performed as Quentin Crisp (a queer icon who I had never heard of, but now adore). Alongside their beautiful dance, Bachelor lip-synched to quotes from Crisp and videos of the Camberwell Incredibles (a learning-disabled theatre group) reading poetry in response to Quentin Crisp’s embrace of dust. The piece felt like a truly collective effort and memorial of a queer life. 

While the first act focussed more intensely on literal animals and natural objects, the second act shifted to focus on queer bodies as natural objects. It interrogated what society deems unnatural, embracing queerness as a natural, life-affirming process. There were solo performances by Daniel Hay-Gordon, Azara Meghie and Luigi Nardone.

Daniel Hay-Gordon’s performance was the most stripped back of the evening, positioning him in a rehearsal-room, dancing to classical music by Brahms. The introduction elucidated his work with people with dual-sensory impairment and loss of a friend, suggesting that we can remember people through movement. I certainly felt this as he performed. The dance allowed me to truly hear and see the music more deeply, to connect with the performer on a level where I felt I truly understood his meaning and process. I felt I could understand dance in a way I never have before.

The technical and emotional brilliance extended to the next piece, as Meghie performed as James Baldwin, emphasising the difficulties and necessities of love in a divided world, with a mixture of overwhelming breakdancing and considered lipsynching. Luigi Nardone concluded the piece as a sexy, glittery leopard in a bedazzled catsuit with matching golden ballet boots. A fabulous presentation of ferality through deft and urgent movements, practically pouncing around the stage and representing a battle between natural urges and societal constraints. This act was thematically brilliant, allowing both a celebration and interrogation of how queer culture is perceived, of normality and naturality in a restrictive world. 

Thick & Tight have created a uniquely bizarre and eclectic form of theatre, blending different mediums with ease, and welcoming a diverse range of performers and audience members alike. I was struck by the level of emotional and intellectual depth of each piece, every performer interrogating how nature and queerness are restricted, defined and expressed through their unique skills and stylistic mediums. It is performances like these that give me hope for a more accessible, boundary-breaking theatrical future. A truly insightful and entrancing display of technical prowess, queer collectivity and the wonders of the natural world that I believe everyone should endeavour to see.

Thick & Tight’s Natural Behaviour runs at Lowry (Quays Theatre) until June 11.

Photo: Rosie Powell