ICA, London
Akhe Engineering Theatre defies categorisation. Presented under the banner of the 2011 London International Mime festival, its latest piece, Gobo. Digital Glossary, offers an exploration of humanity's powerlessness in the face of the chaos of existence. At the centre of the performance is the elusive notion of Gobo, a concept definable only by its absence. Ironic references to heroism and the hero suggest that Gobo might be some kind of ordering principle, perhaps based on antique notions of virtue. A self-deluding dream that a Beckett character might cling to.
Or not, because this event resists all efforts at interpretation. The hour-long performance is almost entirely mute, except for the occasional brusque Russian imprecation, but there are cryptic references to 'Judith from Catford' and 'Susan from West Ham'. Lasers zip across a stage littered with detritus, reflecting off spoons and illuminating a fish tank in which a Big Ears puppet is ritually drowned. A man in a chair raises his leg by means of chains and pulleys and briefly sets himself on fire. Another, with rubber bands wrapped tightly around his face, is pummelled by a plastic boxing kangaroo. A book is laid on a bed of nails, flogged with a scourge and dismembered with a saw.
Maxim Isaev and Pavel Semchenko, the piece's authors and performers, enjoy a certain notoriety in their native St Petersburg as the orchestrators of absurdist "happenings" staged in public spaces and apartment stairwells. That their work leaves spectators flummoxed is part of the point, as is its physical integrity. "If the fire is burning, then it's hot and painful," Semchenko told one interviewer. "We don't want to rely on tricks."
This was a week in which ballet invaded the cinema. On Wednesday the Royal Ballet's production of Giselle, with Marianela Nuñez in the title role and Rupert Pennefather as Albrecht, was relayed live to cinemas all over the world. Entering into the spirit of the event, audiences tweeted each other effusively. 'Lovely first act from my tiny cinema in France. Really like the production, apart from the pas de six,' wrote the online critic Bella Figura. 'Love, love Marianela,' agreed Ashley Bouder, principal dancer with New York City Ballet.
On Friday it was the turn of Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky's gothic psycho-flick in which Natalie Portman plays a ballerina in meltdown. That the film retreads every negative ballet cliche has troubled some dance fans, as has the fact that Portman, with her wonky port de bras and soft, citizen's legs, clearly can't dance to save her life. 'It makes what we do look so naff and laughable,' Royal Ballet star Edward Watson told the Guardian.
It does, but perhaps only to the trained eye. Michael Powell's 1948 film The Red Shoes, which culminates with the star dancer's suicide, sent an entire generation ballet-mad, and while Moira Shearer is beautiful throughout, the supposed ballerina played by Ludmilla Tchérina is laugh-out-loud ludicrous and Robert Helpmann quite startlingly camp. So dance insiders should take the long view, ignore the stereotypes and count the column inches. Is it just a coincidence that the Royal Ballet's new season of Swan Lake opened at Covent Garden yesterday? Well, yes, it probably is. But the fact that it's running alongside Black Swan can only be good news for the box office. And if there's less lurid self-harm and girl-on-girl action in the Royal's version, you do get to see Sarah Lamb's port de bras.
And you might argue that Ian Fraser Kilmister, born on the first Christmas Eve after the end of World War II, makes a far sturdier badass icon. Better known as Lemmy to the gazillion fans of Motörhead, the bruisingly influential English metal band of which he is the only abiding member, the author of such live-fast-die-ugly anthems as 'Eat the Rich,' 'Killed by Death' and the immortal 'Ace of Spades,' seems as indestructible as the Terminator. To paraphrase one of his enthusiastically besotted fans, interviewed outside a concert in the documentary Lemmy: 49% Motherfucker, 51% Son of a Bitch: 'If they ever drop a nuclear bomb on this world, the only thing left behind will be Lemmy and cockroaches.'
