‘You had to be there’ is a handy phrase; the universal save for flat jokes and long-winded stories. It suggests that nothing is ever quite as good as the moment it happened, and here lies the trouble with ‘We Move in Her Way’, an exhibition of an exhibition; a show that turns a live, experimental body-as-art piece into a multimedia installation. Essentially, it’s a film of a performance that’s already happened.
In a blacked-out room decorated with warped images of contorted female figures, footage of the original performance, filmed in the ICA Theatre and directed by the artist Sonia Boyce, is looped on different screens. There are clips of women clad in tight silver spandex, gyrating around a quivering wind chime. There are masked audience members being guided through the space, tethered to the performers by pink scarves. On the largest screen, Elaine Mitchener is giving a vocal performance, the strongest element of the whole ensemble. We find strength in her presence, and disquiet in her voice as she pummels her back to break through the limits of her own vocal range. But there’s also a problem. The energy of that initial performance thrives on the presence of the audience, but now, the audience is not there, instead people are standing in a darkened gallery space, wondering what the hell they just watched.
Dressed like 'Doctor Who' villains, the dancers jerk and shudder, responding to each other’s touch; or the lack of it. At times it seems comically sexual, at others, intentionally childish. When removed from their context, these organic moments at times feel caricatured. We cannot feel the electricity and raw discomfort of audience participation. Boyce pushes the collaborative improvisation to its limit, and her commitment to open-ended performance allows for some beautiful moments. When creating ‘We Move in Her Way’, the artist described the process as ‘recouping the remains’. The trouble is, the remains feel a little bare boned. I guess you had to be there.