Summerhall until September 27th 2012
4 stars
There's something heroic about David Michalek's three-screen sequel of
sorts to his similarly styled Slow Dancing triptych of larger-than-life
slo-mo studies of dancers in motion, first seen in 2007. Where in that
piece five blink-and-you'll-miss-em seconds apiece were stretched out
to ten minutes of extended play performed by professionals, the
choreography applied here is to a more diverse array of long, short,
tall and less whippet-like physiques. Seen largely naked, acting out
routines of every-day movement, Michalek's subjects – a woman with a
double mastectomy, a bearded old man shifting bags of cement in his
Y-Fronts, a couple holding their baby aloft – become monumental pin-ups
striking a pose, as every sinew, muscle and twitch is accentuated and
buffed into shape.
As a conscious form of homage to and reinvention of cinematic and
photographic techniques pioneered in the nineteenth century by Eadward
Muybridge, Michalek's film may look as glossy as a coffee-table
magazine spread made flesh. As each figure blurs into the next,
however, there's a strength beyond the seductively hypnotic display, as
imperfection blurs into beauty en route.
The List, September 2012
ends
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