Performance review

The cost of leaving

‘The cost of leaving’ is a mixture of dance, theatre and speech performed by DV8. According to me, this piece has few hidden ideas. However, I strongly believe that the most important idea was about discovering personal issues of self-being in a socio-cultural context. All the way through the piece there are scenes revealing the idea of criticism, oppression and judgment in everything person does. Separate episodes with different characters contain clear situations concerning that particular character. Moreover, use of words was the main communication aspect between the performer and audience. Style of speech, which includes arrogant words filled with sarcasm and irony, at some point broke down the barrier between performer and watcher. It felt that all of us momentarily found themselves in a similar pretty awkward situation throughout our lives. ‘The cost of leaving’ was one of many ways to make the audience think and analyze the actual cost of our leaving. Do we have enough time to be bothered by other’s criticism and judgment or should we just step over that barrier and just live the way we want to but not the way others want us to live.

On the other hand, as it was mentioned above, the main idea was surrounded by many other issues which can be found in nowadays society. The beginning of piece introduced the employment issue which is the major problem these days. The episode in a nightclub was based on sexual aspects and relation towards women in non-respectable way. In addition to that, there were shown the issues concerning the relationship between men and women. It is again very common problem nowadays. Humanity, leaving in XXI century, seems to misunderstand the matter of love and respect. According to different stories from long time ago, love and respect were the main factors in building a long lasting relationship. It was not only about sexual satisfaction as it seems to be nowadays. Short episode in gents’ toilet pointed out the gay issues. Another and not less important thing to notice was the part which included a lot of questions about disabled man’s legs. It describes a huge amount of people who have a great tendency to abuse and provocation of other human beings. Despite pointing out the main issues of our society, there was one more idea which is equally important as others. It is a relationship between two male characters. They stayed together ignoring the disability, lettings down and criticism. They were loyal to each other and seemed to take from life the most of it. To sum everything up, these situations seemed to be quite shocking, however, at the end of the day it is time to realize how realistic they were.

Finally, as this piece was based on everyday situations, there was a lot of pedestrian movement such as walking and running. Duet which was shown in nightclub was used to express sexuality, satisfaction and relationship between male and female. Choreographic elements, which were performed by a disabled man, clearly revealed the fact that there is no problem in moving and enjoying your life, even though you do not have legs. In my opinion, ballet section was used to express grace, beauty and ease of female.