This ‘sculptural dance’ centres around the changing shapes of health and fitness, performed by artists from various disciplines. The work relies on hilarious obsessional repetitions and narcissistic poses in a sometimes comic and often stunning construction of shape, movement, design and pure colour. Men in suits push colourful ‘walls’ along the length of the screen, that ‘carry’ the performers. Later, in rather the same way, the images shift in front of one another continuously and show many different layers and impressions. The movements of the figures are not interrelated, which seems a reference to the absence of communication and of any sense of community. They run, jump, exercise, or just walk randomly through the indistinct space, in front of, and behind these walls, visible only as shadows. Besides a number of columns and some gymnastic apparatus no objects appear in this space and the camera hardly moves, unlike the screen. The action is supported by Drum’n Bass music, alternated with meditative tunes. The pace of the exercise seems to adjust itself to the music. Drum’n Bass suggests hurried and fast movements even when the performers move slowly, whilst the meditative music seems to suggest exactly the reverse. This video is extremely Audio-Visual. The images gain in intensity because of the inventive staging and editing, and the music enhances, or even defines the atmosphere. Leitmotiv is the relation between people and their surroundings and the importance of posing. Somehow, it confronts classical culture with that of the twentieth century.
– Susanne Geiser
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Scenario Bruce McLean, Jane Thorburn, Camera, Light Terry Flaxton, Editing Jane Thorburn, Music Dave Stewart, With Ashley Page, Christina McDermott, Kevin Atherton, Michelle Legare, Bruce McLean, David Proud, Production After Image for BBC2 and The Arts Council of England
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