DISSONANCE
At one point in Dissonance–a “full-evening work derived from Holocaust images” recently performed by Robin Lakes/Rough Dance at Northwestern University–a spotlight shines on a man half-asleep with his arm draped over a suitcase. Like a lover, he caresses it lightly with his fingers. He begins kissing it, licking it, knowing it’s just a suitcase but wanting so badly for it to be his lover. In a neighboring block of light, another man takes two small cream-colored leather shoes in his hands. Gently, he makes them walk as if his son were still wearing them. A woman alone in another spot of light frantically rummages through a blue overcoat, looking for the person who once wore it; a man plays with a string of pearls that once hung around someone’s neck.
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It seems absurd, but we have to believe it. That’s the strength of Dissonance–it condenses an attempt to systematically exterminate a race into the experiences of a few, unnamed individuals and makes these individuals incredibly real.
The families are scattered, each individual heading to a different distant corner of the stage. Violently, they remove their clothes. They scream angrily, not really understanding what’s happening to them, removing their clothes as if controlled by a malevolent force larger than they. When we see them again, they wear only a few flesh-colored rags. Some sleep on bits of scaffolding, uncomfortably curled around hard metal poles. Their flesh looks soft and vulnerable. All they wear besides the rags are work boots, hard heavy black things.
The young photographer calmly and meticulously begins to photograph the bodies left to rot. He cuts the barbed wire and crawls into the camp to take more photos. The only sound is the click of his shutter. He walks away, ready to go home and hand the pictures in to his editor. Suddenly, he jerks to a halt, as though he’s hit an invisible wall. He seems overwhelmed by horror, his hands curling inward as though shriveling up. He dances a dance of disbelief and repulsion, jumping over dead bodies, rocking on his toes with his feet crossed, palms upward as if asking why. His dance, performed to quirky, raucous music, would be funny if it weren’t such a gut reaction to the horror around him. Then he walks away and slams the door behind him.
