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The Match, 2004
Choreography and script by Deborah Hay
The Match has four players.
What if the potential to perceive all time as unique and original, is not a theme, or movement style, or goal, but a frame for the performers to weave their bodily intelligence through a choreographed melange of notable and hidden metaphors for The Match?
Suitable definitions for The Match:
1) a person or thing that equals or resembles another in some respect
2) a person or thing that is an exact counterpart of another
3) one able to cope with another as an equal
4) a corresponding or suitably associated pair
5) a contest or game
Glossary of sounds performed in respective order in The Match:
1- an intermittent spontaneous song, hummed softly
2- a quietly spoken, untranslatable conversation, with silences
3- a golf crowd’s affirmation, as heard on TV: first the humming of group approval, followed by its applause recreated by smacking the tongue and lips together
4- the dull thwack of a performer’s hands meeting, without clapping
5- an audible bastardization of #3
6- “ffft”, produced by compressing and widening the lips, and using the tongue to catapult the breath out between the front teeth - the mouth’s shape quickly restores to keep the source unseen
7- a complex, non-translatable, whispered rhythmic ditty
8- two different single syllable sound(s), or word(s), inspired by a cheer heard at a boxing, tennis, or some other kind of match
9- blowing out and sucking in air, at the same time
10- an American high school cheering rhythm, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7, etc., chanted with a cheerleader’s verve - transformed through a spontaneous substitution of single syllable utterances for each beat
11- the above ardent single syllable chant, deconstructed while leaving the mouth
12- “tcct”, a shortened version of “tic”
13- a subdued, unintelligible, throaty talking pattern, simultaneously retracted
14- a single quiet note produced by combining a high and low tone
15- spunky, illustrative children’s-toy utterance(s)
The question that guides the performance of The Match:
What if every cell in the body at once has the potential to perceive the uniqueness and originality of time?
Note: it is possible to remove the tyranny of having to create original and unique movement if the performer understands that the question pertains to how one perceives rather than what one perceives.The cast:
Cathy
Frank
Charles
Fiona
Note: The names of the dancers who first performed The Match, at Danspace Project, New York, NY, February 5 – 8, 2004, have been changed so future performers do not model themselves on the original cast.
Time: under one hour.
Preset: just before the last few audience members are seated Cathy enters performing a simple travelling movement with unflagging buoyancy and rhythm. As she travels, an experienced audience member might see a constantly reconfigured self along a myriad of unbeknownst pathways in space.
Six minutes later the lights begin to dim.
ACT I
Fiona, Frank, Charles: enter at their own pace for just a few moments before the lights go out.
In the dark, Charles, Fiona, and Frank move to a preset position while Cathy exits.
Lights
Fi, Fra, Chas: cross to a new location performing smartly executed movement (movement that is not driven by inner rhythm, a sense of flow, or a history of training; movement that does not feel personally gratifying) based on the 6-minute rhythmic dance established by Cathy. Fiona performs centerstage.
Fra, Fi, Chas: like three matches extinguished, movement stops.
Chas: restart and exit performing smartly executed movement.
Fi, Fra: proceed to the next location, performing instances of weightless, lyrical, spiraling movements not unlike smoke, but not like it, either. Softly hum an intermittent spontaneous love song.
Ca: As Frank reaches stage right, step onstage and embrace him.
Fi: Simultaneous with the embrace, become still.
Note: the embrace upstage and Fiona’s single figure downstage are, as if captured by a long pause.
Ca, Fra: simultaneously break into a traveling movement dialogue, with and without physical contact, and a quietly spoken, untranslatable substitute for a real conversation, with silences.
Fi: Simultaneously follow a curved path upstage, inspired by the sounds from the duet.
Chas: step onstage to form a diagonal line with the others.
Chas, Fi, Fra, Ca: take one step left.
Blackout
Fra, Ca, Fi, Chas: in the dark take one step right.
Lights
Ca, Chas, Fra, Fi: perform individual movements, best described as deliberately inconsequential, in close range to one another, eventually recombining into a set formation. Check to see that everyone ends facing the same direction.
Fi, Fra, Chas, Ca: head turns to look stage left. Produce two different sounds although they cannot be verified as such – first, a golf crowd’s affirmation, as heard on television, humming group approval: followed by its applause, recreated by smacking the tongue and lips together.
Ca, Chas, Fra, Fi: bend over or somehow lower by half, moving quickly, with deliberate inconsequentiality, maintaining a messy cluster. Produce a sporadic thwack from a pair of hands meeting, without clapping. New positions are taken.
Chas, Fra, Fi, Ca: straighten up, check for identical facing, and turn head stage left. Long pause.
Chas, Fra, Fi, Ca: television golf sounds repeat.
Ca, Fi, Chas, Fra: cross stage, in one of four roles:
1) a scientist busy at work in the lab
2) the lab
3) someone who undoes the scientist’s work
4) one who oversees the whole shebang
End in another preset arrangement.
Chas, Ca, Fi, Fra: Heads turn stage left. Short pause. Produce an audible bastardization of the golf audience instructions.
Chas, Ca, Fi, Fra: follow a curved path upstage, pulled by unrecognizable magnetic forces.
Ca, Fi, Fra, Chas: choose the sequence for performing three movements:
1) the right lower arm drops quickly, like an axe,
2) slavishly turn backward and around, and,
3) without paralleling either #1 or #2, produce a “fffft”, by compressing and widening the lips, and using the tongue to catapult the breath out between the front teeth. Restore the mouth quickly so that the sound’s source is unseen.
Fra, Fi, Chas, Ca: Four spontaneous, individual, rhythmic combinations of snappily executed steps and jumps repeats and travels along a curved path. Side by side, face inside the curve. Then, fall into a void.
Fi, Chas, Ca, Fra: retrace path, repeating the same rhythmic combination as before, but face the convex plane of the curve. (The audible rhythmic counterpoint among the four separate combinations is music. )
Ca, Fi, Chas, Fra: disperse by continuing but distorting the former rhythm and movement.
Fra, Ca, Fi, Chas: choose sequence to perform three movements:
- the right arm, bent at the elbow, pokes forward in space
- one slavish turn backward and around, and,
- produce without paralleling either #1 or #2, a “fffft”, by compressing and widening the lips, and using the tongue to catapult the breath out between the front teeth. Restore the mouth quickly so the sound’s source is unseen.
Fra, Fi, Ca, Chas: rather weightless and with little impulse, perform the same movement and rhythm on tippy-toe, drawing stage right to a new set place. Add voice, in a corresponding, complex, non-translatable whisper, to accompany the elevated footsteps.
Ca, Fi: produce inconsistently two different single syllable sound(s), or word(s), inspired by a cheer heard at a boxing, tennis, or some other kind of match. Enthusiastically gesture, intermittently. Volume gradually diminishes.
Fra, Chas: run in place. No attention is given to the cheering.
Fra, Fi, Chas, Ca: all action ceases. Head lowers.
Several immediate choices are made and remade:
a) an exhale matches the force of an inhale as a pair of facing palms exhibit excitement;
b) facing hands raise incrementally, sometimes together or separately;
c) use odd quick travel to move the action through space;
d) seemingly important little matches are made.
Chas, Ca, Fi, Fra: Before hands are fully overhead, click fingers, rock body sensually, enjoyably, commandingly, jazzily. (Practice keeps this from schlock)
Ca, Fi, Fra, Chas: Form a line downstage in front of the audience and break into the all-American high school chanting beat, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7, etc. Spontaneously verbalize as single syllable utterances that cheer each other and the audience. Physically charge the chanting.
Fi, Chas, Ca, Fra: move backwards upstage while the clarity of the single syllables transform into gobbilygook.
Ca, Fi, Fra: one softly spoken linear sentence is cut short with the sound, “tcct”, (short for “tic”), and a spontaneous, brief, highly stylized dance. Each “tcct” starts a new dance, dynamically matching the preceding one but stylistically different from “tcct” to “tcct”. Each little dance is a uniquely theatrical self meeting the moment. Exit individually.
Chas: perform only one “tcct” before a unique series of highly theatrical transformations, the duration of which is original, unique, and quintessentially contained.
Ca, Fi, Fra: (Offstage, turn away from the stage).
Chas: produce an incantation, not a plea, to draw Ca, Fi, and Fra, back to stage.
Ca, Fi, Fra: Appear at the edge of the stage, the head is the primary body part that bends, cocks, rolls, twists, and turns.
Chas: exit incanting.
Fra, Fi, Ca: travel, in random order - lift one knee hip high in front of the body, then the other. Arms are outstretched.
Fra, Ca, or Fra, Fi, or Fi, Ca: individually, in one swoop, bend forward, knees bent, say “fffft”. Simultaneously, one and then the other hand stack about two feet from and facing the floor. Arms and body rise incrementally, as a unit, with and sometimes without saying “ffft”.
Fi, or Ca, or Fra: exit performing knee lifts.
Fra, Ca, or Fra, Fi, or Fi, Ca: (continued): hands are almost overhead before pressing back down to the floor. Follow, original and unique, rolling over a few times, like imagined stop-frame photography.
Fi, or Ca, or Fra, plus Chas: return to stage rolling like imagined stop-frame photography.
Fra, Fi, Chas, Ca: reverse rolling direction to spiral up into an airplane stance; arms spread to the sides, one leg bent in front of the body and the other extended behind. Banking is possible.
Fra, Fi, Chas, Ca: in a subdued throaty voice speak and simultaneously retract unintelligible remarks. Intersperse with silence and an occasional single quiet note combining a high and low tone.
Note: The Match hypothesizes the possible with the impossible.
Fra, Fi, Chas: Individually shift from the airplane into a single gesture made in relation to the others. Sustain voices.
Ca: remain in the airplane.
Fra, Fi, Chas, Ca: stand tall, by making incremental adjustments performed in ordinary time. Sound continues.
Fra, Fi, Chas, Ca: eyes shut.
Fra, Fi, Chas, Ca: ridiculously illustrative, combine voice, movement, locomotion, and attitude to spontaneously ennact a spunky, child’s toy i.e. a jack-in-the-box – a theme-and-variation combining humor, joy, corn, idiocy, and even embarrassment. Repeat again and again - a challenge to self-esteem.
Fra, Chas, Ca: exit as toy.
Fi: continue until toy breaks down, or explodes, or deconstructs, or loses steam, or malfunctions, or transforms, or stops, whatever.
Fra, Ca, Chas: crawl into view thus determining the conclusion of Fi’s solo.
Note: this is a challenging choice, not a solicitous one.
Fi: exit and reappear instantly, crawling.
Fi, Ca, Chas, Fra: Crawl anywhere and/or stop, and/or sit leaning into a hip.
Fra: stand up and perform matching nothing with everything.
Ca, Chas, Fi: do not look at Fra.
Fra: just for a moment, salute the audience.
The lights go out
[_writings and notes]