Rhetoric has the power to persuade and a good speech takes its listeners on a journey, often leading them to a place of rapture – and no more so than with evangelist preachers like the American televangelist Jimmy Swaggart.
In a fifty-minute dance piece, Lisbeth Gruwez embodies this disarming process. She first appears backlit, standing on a square of grey carpet in luminous outline, a neat figure in grey trousers, white shirt and gleaming patent leather shoes. Her gaze is bold, a slight smile now and then. She is like a male flamenco dancer, head slightly down, back straight. Her gestures are minimal and conduct the broken text and sonic sounds, fragments of Swaggart’s preaching, that seem to come from behind the audience. She is master of the text and our guide to it.
There is a beautiful, slow pace to this opening section. It teases. It repeats almost to the point of ‘OK, enough’ and then it changes tack just at the right moment. Swaggart’s sentences build and the movements get fuller, richer and more expansive. Just when we think it is going to break into really strong vocals, it cuts out and Lisbeth falls to the floor, where she stays. Just that little bit too long for comfort. Teasing us again.
Now, with socks and pants pulled up like those of a matador, the piece shifts into another gear and we get the pay off. Shuddering, filled with light, the dancer and the speech become dynamic. It’s a perfect marriage of form and content; the figure bouncing higher and higher as if driven by an inner ecstasy, and Swaggart urging it on with his breathless booming, encouraging a trance-like state. The sound comes from somewhere else; it is omnipresent, surrounding us and Lisbeth. The puppet master has become the puppet. She beams with joy and is lifted. Blackout.
Lisbeth’s training in classical ballet is evident in her poise and control. Her subsequent career with some of the leading contemporary dance companies in Europe shines through the choreography: sharp, swooping and adventurous – it takes a really disciplined body and mind to pull this off without loss of breath and with such assurance. The accompanying sound and cut-up speech (by musician and composer Maarten Van Cauwenberghe) is similarly exquisite.
In contrast with the show’s title, it doesn’t get much better and better than this, my friend.