Eryk Makohon: DIRTY DANCING

The performance, despite the obvious reference to the title of the 1987 classic film (which premiered in Poland in the landmark year of 1989), is not its reinterpretation. Instead, it is an autonomous and radical response to the idea of dirty dancing – as a metaphor for transgression. We are interested in dance understood not as choreography of movement, but as a performative act of going beyond social norms: ethical, aesthetic and emotional. Dirty Dancing is a dance that is impure, shameful, lustful, bothersome – yet liberating and transformative.

Together with four performers from M STUDIO, we created a study of individual ‘embarrassing performances’. Each of the artists has developed their own stage alter ego and a set of actions and gestures balancing on embarrassment, ridicule and pleasure. A key element of the process was guilty pleasure – understood not as pop culture entertainment, but as the practice of crossing social barriers and testing the boundaries of comfort. We tested what happens when pleasure is no longer burdened by guilt.

The show explores the political potential of embarrassing performance – as a strategy of resistance to societal expectations, norms and pressures. We are interested in whether by voluntarily transgressing the boundaries of ‘good taste’ and convention, it is possible to achieve a new quality of presence – more authentic, bodily, sensitive to one’s own feelings. In this sense, Dirty Dancing is not a performance to be analysed intellectually from a safe distance. It is an event that engages the spectator on a bodily and emotional level, inviting empathy, second-hand shame, joint laughter.
It is also a proposal – risky but sincere – to treat one’s own embarrassment as a gateway to freedom.

Attention!
This performance contains strobe lighting effects, therefore it is not recommended for people with photosensitivity.

Concept, direction, set design – Eryk Makohon
Dramaturgy – Daria Kubisiak
Assistant director and choreographer – Paweł Łyskawa
Costumes: Zsuzsi Szőke
Performers: Emília Polgár, Eszter Nagy, László Szekrényes, Zoltán Deák
Co-financed by Sfântu Gheorghe Mayor’s Office, European Union, The Administration of the National Culture Fund

The performance is part of the Beyond Front@: Bridging Periphery project, developed in collaboration with Central Europe Dance Theatre – CEDT (HU), Bunker (SI), HIPP (HR), Krakow Dance Theatre (PL), M Studio (RO). The project is co-financed by the European Union’s Creative Europe programme.