REFLECTION: e.ID: A Fugue stages our digital identity crisis through vigorous choreography
Opening at the State Theatre in Pretoria this week, Louise Coetzer’s e.ID: A Fugue is as astonishing as it is bewildering. And as much as it’s an enlivening, exhilarating performance, it also feels like an elegy for a disappearing species, our final death knell concocted by a cabal of suited plutocrats.
The e.ID: A Fugue, a new production by Darkroom Contemporary Dance Theatre, opened at the State Theatre in Pretoria this week. The performance, choreographed by Louise Coetzer, is as astonishing as it is bewildering, leaving the audience both enlivened and bewildered. It is an elegy for a disappearing species – ourselves – as we grapple with our digital identity crisis.
The performance begins with wild wind generated by six industrial-strength fans, blasting air across the performance space. Six dancers stand poised on the tips of their toes, balancing and moving delicately to a soundtrack of metallic snaps, cracks, and pings. Each dancer holds a large water-filled plastic bag, symbolizing the fragility of our connection to the world around us.
As the dancers navigate this physical and mental landscape, they embody the crisis of identity that arises as we become increasingly dependent on technology. The performance is a journey through the shifting nature of human identity, the balance between the physical and digital, and the embodied experience of being human. The dancers, including Gemma Trehearn, Rian Jansen, Tamsyn Pretorius, Gala Winkler, and Aphiwe Sodlamba, exemplify the physical manifestation of these complex ideas, showing us the toll it takes to grapple with these existential questions.
Coetzer's choreography evolves from the initial torture of balancing on toes to a complex, multivalent language that often feels animalistic, insect-like, or creature-like. The dancers transform through various gestures, becoming something not quite human, further emphasizing the shifting identity we face in our increasingly hybrid existence.
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