MATOU ★★★★1/2

DanceHouse / AsiaTOPA February 14-15

For a dance performance, I’d describe Matou as an extreme sport. It looked to require of Japanese dancer-choreographer Ruri Mito both intense mindfulness and the most strenuous bodifulness. For her audience, the show was demanding too. Ghastly and gruelling, but also gorgeous.

Matou opened with Mito positioned mid-stage in the most extraordinary shape, appearing to be an inverted dismembered torso. It was only that I had fleetingly observed her enter the space earlier that I had any certainty it was a whole person in front of us. Was it a human shape, with all its body parts? A wide shouldered male torso right way up, or female body upside-down?

This mesmerising spectacle was held for much longer that it felt uncomfortable to watch, almost unbearably so. I longed for Mito to unfold and reclaim a recognisable form.

Ruri Mito in Matou at Dancehouse

Other shapes she flowed and folded into evoked creatures: a sideways-creeping crab, an angular-legged grasshopper and a chrysalis-emerging caterpillar. The most astonishing moment came as her widespread legs acted as fulcrum for her reverted torso, head and arms to circle the floor in a loose arc. The normal restrictions of a small human body seemed not to apply, with somehow the upside-down top half of her swinging wildly while the right-side-up bottom half held steady.

The choreographic sparseness was complemented perfectly with the barest essentials, of a hardly-there flesh costume, unobtrusive lighting and soundtrack by Yuta Kumachi featuring sounds ranging from melodic tinkling like glass wind chimes to a nasty tinnitus-sounding buzz.

The audience’s enthusiastic response prompted Mito to return three times for a bow. It was delightful to see her bounding in and out so lightly after these extreme endeavours. This sold-out performance confirms Melbourne audience’s interest in Asian cultural practices reflected (or induced) by the marvellously diverse offerings of the AsiaTOPA festival.

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