It’s all in that last turn. That last look, the only real look she’s casting at her audience. As in: you might think that they were all sort of randomly chosen, all the things, moves and scenes you’ve just seen, but hey, I dó know what I’m doing. Shapeless, a solo by Belgian choreographer Charlotte Vanden Eynde, which premiered at Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels). For anyone who needed proof of the fact that Vanden Eynde is a clever and gifted artist.

Some may find it cold or distant. I find it utterly intriguing. Just watch Charlotte Vanden Eynde for a while and the thought will hit you too. It’s fascinating to see how she succeeds in putting a moving body on stage devoid of emotions. But it’s not as if you were looking at a robot. No, you’re clearly looking at a human being. One that’s behaving rather strangely. It’s a body that’s trying out all kinds of different things. A body that’s almost surprised at how a body can move, by what that body can do.

For Shapeless Vanden Eynde wanted to explore the realm of abstract dance. To try out movements that come from a desire to want to move and not from an emotionally charged theme, a certain bit of content of a specific set of associations. To try and investigate the tension between form and not-form. She uses a quote from Jonathan Burrows to explain what she’s looking for. ‘The first time you create a movement, it’s unseen, but the more you repeat it, the more normal it becomes. The trick is to re-invent that unseen, what is unique in a movement.’

It means that it often looks as it she almost accidentally stumbles upon certain movements, on stage. But the great thing is that you never get the impression that she’s just making it all up, on the spot. That she’s improvising. No, there clearly is a structure, even though all of this is conceived to look as merely random. I thought it was great to see how all the elements of this performance neatly came together. That blond girl in that blue dress (she does know a thing or two about the presence of a female body on stage, too), the many different ways those white spots lighted that stage almost randomly, that well-chosen soundtrack (Einstürzende Neubauten, John Zorn, Brigitte Fontaine…) played at the right volume (not too loud, that is) and let’s not forget, even though it might look indifferent: the unmistakable pleasure Vanden Eynde takes in dancing, in that particular way that’s clearly her own.

There were these three cowboys, and they were trying to stay on their feet and dance on these giant inflatable cushions, as if they were riding on a mechanical bull. Sometimes the summary of a performance – those few lines you tell your friends afterwards – can be very good, whereas the performance itself might have disappointed you. Take The Host, for instance, by Andros Zins-Browne, a New Yorker who studied at PARTS and danced with Jonathan Burrows and Mette Ingvartsen.

It starts out nice and rather mysteriously. Slowly the lights go up on that dark stage (the audience is sitting on the four sides of it) and you hear a strange sound that gets louder and louder. It turns out to be the noise those yellow ventilators make, needed to inflate that gigantic set. And then those three cowboy enter on stage. Slowly and cautiously they investigate that weird and bubbly landscape. How on earth will they manage to stay on their feet?

What is the status of the individual when his environment can no longer be conquered and controlled, when the individual is weak in comparison to the power of nature? That’s the question that lies at the core of Zins-Browne’s performance. And therefore he turned to cowboys for The Host: those archetypical heroes, and prime examples of Men who are always winning that fight against Land.

The Host is one of those performances that you look at smilingly, really wanting those performers to succeed. But from the moment that gigantic set is inflated and you admire the view, you immediately wonder if they will be able to keep it an interesting performance. And that’s where Zins-Browne unfortunately fails.

Sure, it’s funny when they start line dancing, as cowboys do, and it gets really funny in the end when that last gigantic cushion starts tossing them around as mechanical bulls do. But still, they never succeed in surpassing the ’pitch’ - to use that film term – of this performance: three guys on a gigantic inflatable set. In that sense Zins-Browne goes down in the same way his cowboys do:  it’s Man losing that fight against Nature. In his case: his set.

More info and tour schedule here. You’ll find a video trailer here.