TORONTO PREMIERE OF SASHA IVANOCHKO'S GLORIOUSLY SEXY 'SPEAK, LOVE'

PUBLICITY FROM THE WINNIPEG PRODUCTION, RACHEL BROWNE THEATRE

blackandblue dance projects presents

Speak, Love

created by Sasha Ivanochko
with Director Dan Wild and Performer Brendan Wyatt

Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, 

absentminded. Someone sober 

will worry about things going badly. 

Let the lover be.

                                      Rumi

Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire. The emotion derives from a double contact: on the one hand, a whole activity of discourse discreetly, indirectly focuses upon a single signified, which is "I desire you," and releases, nourishes, ramifies it to the point of explosion (language experiences orgasm upon touching itself); on the other hand, I enwrap the other in my words, I caress, brush against, talk up this contact, I extend myself to make the commentary to which I submit the relation endure. 

           Roland Barthes, A Lover's Discourse: Fragments

Seated in a beaten up metal chair, and surrounded by a kind of mobile/collage of other identical and evocative furniturial* pieces, Brendan Wyatt's beautiful body opens the hour long naked offering, 'Speak, Love' - currently running at the Winchester Street Theatre.  In the hands of choreographer/dancer Sasha Ivanochko, (at one point the palms of her hands almost cup his mesmerizing 'member') Wyatt's nude corporeal presence becomes a receptacle for a seamless romp, both light and dark, through ruminations on love, sex, and the ultimate recognition of that little iconic triumvirate of words so many seem to crave the sound of. 

'Speak, Love' is a complex and exciting love meditation not to be missed - and not just because you get to glare at impressive male genitals and Ivanochko's own gorgeous naked physique for sixty minutes (if that's not enough reason to be there!) but primarily because what begins as a subtle, wandering meditation suddenly explodes into a relentless and passionate physical dialogue that is  breathtaking, erotic, and profoundly committed to the human form and all its verbal and physical utterances.

As the dancers speak fragments from Roland Barthes and Rumi to each other, chairs and scattered sheets of paper become a spare, figurative setting for a stream of intricate movements and pleas by the dancers that appear idiosyncratic and somewhat ponderous at first. But once the wait is over it is well worth the wanton wondrous voyeurism as it all comes together in a beautifully layered physical narrative that flirts with the comic, the violent, the bewildered, and the fulfilling hunger for the coupling of human hearts and organs all in one swellfoop. 

A flesh colored hoodie plays a comic - at times fearful - and immensely creative part in the proceedings as the duo's dynamic flesh ultimately becomes one, while the lofty poetic luv utterances lapse into daring and gorgeous, at times hilarious sounds coming from the performer's muffled mouths. Both Wyatt and Ivanochko possess, beyond the obvious allure of their exposed limbs, torsos, what have you, immense vocal and physical stage presence. Ivanochko in particular presents a kind of angry, deceptively neutral, frequently pleading yet always in control manner through a form of measured subtlety via tightly focused facial and bodily composure. Wyatt's voice and expression match his co-stars subtlety as he takes part in highly sexualized entanglements that move in and out of enthralling and skillfully executed choreography that drives home the company name, blackandblue, with obvious and thrilling physical force.

Director Dan Wild, in collaboration with the dancers, has staged a beautiful and provocative piece of dance theatre/performance art that thoroughly validates Ivanochko's feeling that "the nudity is not to titillate but to allow expression of aspects of a couple's relationship." Absolutely - why give titillation a back seat when it can be choreographed with such power and grace, literally taking the human body into one's own hands, caressing, thumping up against, and slithering in and out of so many godgiven nooks and crannies in a fabulous attempt to reveal that love dares speak its name in an endless variety of verbal and corporeal outbursts.


* 'FURNITURIAL' IS A AN ODD WORD THIS WRITER MADE UP, A WORD THAT HE FEELS IS WORTHY OF THE SPARE, SURREAL AND EVOCATIVE SCENOGRAPHY CREATED BY MARGARET KRAWECKA, THE MARVELOUS MOOD ENHANCING SOUND DESIGN OF CATHERINE THOMPSON, AND THE DISCREET, HOODIE INHABITED, AND UTTERLY VERSATILE COSTUMES DESIGNED BY TANYA WHITE

RUNNING AT THE WINCHESTER STREET THEATRE 

UNTIL NOVEMBER 23RD

blackandblue dance projects presents the Toronto premiere of Speak, Love 
Choreography by: Sasha Ivanochko
Featuring: Brendan Wyatt and Sasha Ivanochko

4 performances only! November 21st – 23rd, 2013 at 8pm and a 4pm matinee on the 23rd. The Winchester Street Theatre, 80 Winchester Street, TorontoTickets: $20 or 17.50 for students/seniors/artists and available through Brown Paper Tickets at: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/456890