Transforming space into an imaginary landscape

During one of the public performances which took place during the İdans Istanbul International Contemporary Dance & Performance Festival, two dancers dressed in dock workers’ overalls to protect themselves from the rain, greeted the crowd as it got out of the ferry, with their unique welcome.

The Ballet of Sam Hogue and Augustus Benjamin (c) Ayşe Draz

The Ballet of Sam Hogue and Augustus Benjamin is a piece developed by two very talented dancers, Thomas Steyaert and Raul Maia who have previously danced with the prominent choreographer Wim Vandekeybus’s company  Ultima Vez. The piece aims to present these two dancers also as choreographer-workers who work on developing a specific movement language which generates certain theatricality without necessarily the use of symbolism. This piece was performed on two consecutive days as a free public space performance in Beşiktaş during the İdans festival which took place last month in Istanbul.

The Ballet of Sam Hogue and Augustus Benjamin (c) Ayşe Draz

I went to see the performance during their 13:00 pm session on a rainy day. The dancers were dressed in yellow and green overalls to protect themselves from getting wet in the rain.

The performance was also accompanied by another performer improvising on a saxophone. The performance taking place by the water next to the Beşiktaş ferry port had transformed the public space into a theatrical setting as the people who were running their daily errands stopped and gathered around the performance in spite of the pouring rain. However the particular conditions of the weather and the location of this particular public space also transformed the performance into a duet in an almost imaginary landscape. That particular location and the rain that day brought into the equation an additional theatricality which is only rare and spontaneous.  

The Ballet of Sam Hogue and Augustus Benjamin (c) Ayşe Draz

It was as if the colors of the performers’ overalls made a reference to the colors on Istanbul’s ferries; it was as if the wolf mask one of the performers put on in order to protect himself from getting soaked in rain, transported the performance into a fairytale-like setting; the particular color of the Bosphorus on a rainy day, instead of pinning the performance down into its particular setting almost rendered it space-less as it alluded to any port in the world by the water. Thus the open quality of the performance allowed the performativity the public space itself to transform the piece, and as members of the audience we were guided into the docks of our own imagination...     

The Ballet of Sam Hogue and Augustus Benjamin (c) Ayşe Draz