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The controversial and internationally-acclaimed Irish dance company Fitzgerald & Stapleton presented their “choreographed live edited dance film” Lurky! Lurky! last weekend at the Samuel Beckett Theatre. Emma Fitzgerald and Áine Stapleton are known for performing naked during their shows, using their bodies to resist the male gaze and de-objectify the female body. The inspiration for Lurky! Lurky! came from their experience of having a YouTube video of one of their performances uploaded without their consent to a porn site; in their new work, they wanted to address the dangers of the porn industry, and to explore the complicated relationship between gender, the female body and society, as they have done in their previous sold-out shows WAGE (2013), The Smell of Want (2011) and The Work The Work (2010).
This is their first foray into film, and the show combines live dance performance, film editing, and sound mixing by Ian Cudmore and DJ Djackulate, who sit at a table to the side in wigs and dresses. The film, divided between playful sketches and lengthy close-ups on intimate body parts, fails to cohere, and often comes across like a low-budget project on iMovie with fleeting guest appearances from Fitzgerald and Stapleton, who remain inside a frame covered in black gauze for most of the performance. They briefly emerge from the platform to bang a gong, before sliding back underneath the gauze, where they occasionally make a beautiful shape under the soft lights, but mostly lie still.
While Fitzgerald & Stapleton mention rape, eating disorders, domestic violence and child abuse during the show, film dominates at the expense of live performance, and the images are far less effective than the physical presence of the performers in communicating their message about gender politics. Evocative scenes are frequently undercut by lengthy sequences of rapidly flashing kaleidoscopic images, bringing to mind the Windows Media Player visualiser. They recite a boisterous poem which opens, “We went onto Google, and what did we see / Bryan Singer, Terry Richardson and Elvis Presley / Bangin the young ones without any remorse / Without punishment, it’s okay of course,” and closes with the suggestion that Richardson et al “should be locked in a cage with dick-eating sharks”. Despite their obvious indignance, the poem falls flat, coming across more like a superficial gesture or a cheap joke than a heartfelt political statement.
From the opening line, “Do you know anywhere I could get a handjob around here?”, and the remixes of Ryan Tubridy’s and Pat Kenny’s radio shows, to a scene where one of the dancers strips down to black lace lingerie, only to reveal two oven pizzas in her sweatpants and an avocado tucked into her thong, Lurky! Lurky! is at its best during its bold satirical skits. The highlight of the show is a mock commercial for Porno Pops, which begins in a family’s kitchen. The wife wears an apron bearing the words “BALL AND CHAIN”, and holds a note reading “undying love”. The child enjoys his breakfast of Porno Pops, which promise a “powerful hard-on to start the day” and are available in two exciting flavours: Black Lesbian Cheerleader and Amazing Teen.
Lurky! Lurky! would have greatly benefitted from developing the dance performance to better engage the audience. Overall it is a very ambitious project, but by under-utilising the performers, it feels unbalanced, as the reliance on film obstructs any meaningful audience connection with the piece or its purported message.
