NUCLEODANZA
So begins Tilt, the first work on a program at the Dance Center by Nucleodanza, an Argentinean troupe formed in 1974 by Margarita Bali and Susana Tambutti. Tilt is Bali’s work, a solo performed by Ines Sanguinetti, and it is as stylish, as sexy, as elegantly performed, and as deeply angry and despairing as anything I’ve seen in a long, long time.
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Nucleodanza has no such compunction, and the result is art that’s both sexy and deeply political. Sanguinetti in Tilt seduces the audience with no trace of self-consciousness or self-parody: she’s a ravishing presence, with a thin raptor’s face, long legs, long hair. After she unwinds herself from the curtain, we see she’s wearing green tights, black ankle-height boots, and a shiny black and yellow dress slit to the crotch front and back (even the iron is stylish– Italianate and bright red). Nevertheless Sanguinetti doesn’t relate to us but to her environment: she dances a tango, for instance, with the kitchen table, caressing it with her foot, entwining her leg around its leg. The result is funny, seductive, and horrifying: this is what happens to women’s imaginations and sensuality when they’re enshrined in the home.
The rest of Cadavre Exquis is designed to undercut any liking you might have for heterosexuality. Two people in gas masks “kiss” to a taped assortment of snorting, snuffling, suctioning noises, and when one of them produces a giant egg, the other appears to suck it dry. A woman in a slinky Harlow-style gown and fluffy platinum Monroe-style wig performs a dance that seems to come entirely from her revolving hips; she’s joined by two others in identical wigs and similar gowns. Eventually we realize what’s wrong with their faces: they’re all wearing nearly transparent masks that subtly distort their features–and then they suck in the lips and make themselves completely grotesque. People enter with extra arms or legs (inventive “body sculptures” by Roberto Parini) with which they caress themselves and seduce others.
As the piece opens, what we at first think is a man in a hat turns out to be a sort of scarecrow: merely a hat and coat draped over a chair. A woman emerges from behind it in a bustier, dark glasses, and false nose and mustache; she plucks the red rose from the coat sleeve and puts on the garter it’s attached to, dons the hat, pulls on the baggy pants, which float around her waist supported by suspenders, and knots a scarf around her neck as ascot. This macabre figure, both male and female, then launches into a silent-comedy routine, nerdily pushing up her glasses with a little finger, grunting and groaning, full of manic vitality and confidence until she socks herself in the cheek by accident. Eventually, by reclining in profile with the side away from us holding a fan and wearing a glittery slipper while the side toward us is in a male coat and hat, she seems to become male and female at once and seduces herself, groping the hat-and-coat side with a bare arm while her bare leg waves salaciously in the air.
