Uncover/Discover by Moveo Dance Company took me on an unconventional journey that combined clown and contemporary dance through curiosity, surprise, shyness and astonishment.
Presented within ŻiguŻajg, curated for 8-10 years old audience, Uncover/Discover perfectly reflected the values of a festival for children, inviting the older audience to watch through their inner child’s eyes the three main characters’ journey.
Entering Valletta Campus Theatre two loud and extravagant clowns, – Flirty L’Oréal (Irene Nocella) and Modestoe (Charlotte Curmi Carpentier) welcomed the audience in the corridor with excitement, running around while trying to hide themselves and curiously checking on the audience. Since the presentation of the show – given by Flirty L’Oréal but translated by Modestoe into human language – the intervention of these two comic figures as djs, light technicians, and helping advisers played a fundamental role.
The audience took their seats admiring the set by Dorian Mallia – made of three separate stations, different in size, colour and structure reflecting the personalities of three clowns: the melancholic Baħ (Dorian Mallia), who gave the saddest look and the loneliest wave to people while taking their seat; Ronnie (Lou Jurgen’s), loud and colourfully exuberant and Captain Goosebumps (Diane Portelli), a rebellious princess deeply scared to open her heart.
Like a performer puts on their nose behind the scenes to discover their clown, uncovering a state of intense fragility and vibratile excitement, Ronnie revealed himself from his station clumsily looking for his glasses. To put them on enabled him to enter the show, loudly interacting with a very participant audience. Thanks to Modestoe’s moral support: 5 seconds of courage and the bursting groove of “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” — Ronnie tries to be cool, showing off his masculine physicality performing athletic and energetic jumps and pushes-up to impress Captain Goosebumps, who constantly rejects him.
The relationship between them, not only across the stage but also walking among the audience breaking the fourth wall, is hilarious and constantly exaggerated through an engaging mix of movement and spoken language. The two characters embody the constantly present juxtaposition between colour and whiteness in their costumes as well as between the warm yellow and the cold blue used in the space to lit their respective stations. Roonie constantly appeals to the audience, he is loud, desperately passionate, goofy and scatterbrained in his movements and gestures. On the contrary, Captain Goosebumps tends to hide, she doesn’t speak much, but from her facial expression and body language she clearly conveys grumpiness, extreme shyness and unsatisfaction. While Roonie desperately tries to catch her attention, practicing the “6/7” continuously mentioned by the audience and how to say “I love you”, princess Captain Goosebumps dramatically looks for different clothes from her hated white princess clothes that are tremendously itchy – as the discomfort of her movement clearly expresses.
Captain Goosebumps, seeks help from her best friend Baħ – faded into the background. Baħ is shy and voiceless, sad and vulnerable. The emotionally poetic interaction between the two clowns dominated by incommunicability and misunderstanding, transforms a duet into an anti-pas de deux, where the princess doesn’t want to be a princess and the voiceless sad friend ends up throwing her around in breathcatching complex lifts and turns instead ofhelping her with her itchy clothes. Observing the dynamic pace of the show, full of quick unpredictable light and music changes as well as the use of multiple props, the intensely human relatability of this duet represented to me one of the most touching moments of the show.
Even though the three of them seem to not find a solution in their individuality, a techno party where they give the freest outlet to their authentic personalities and spontaneous dances, makes them discover what they were looking for. Thanks to a forgotten time capsule, a pair of tights, white with black stripes, makes Captain Goosebumps discover that she can feel comfortably itchless and confident enough to give Roonie a chance. Baħ finds his voice thanks to a special pair of red socks to be worn as a scarf, that allows him to make his beautiful voice resound while intimately singing “Everything, everything is new” by Anohni and The Johnsons.
What made Uncover/Discover magically unique were the unforeseen and unexpected elements that shaped the performance flow with funny twists and an amazing use of humor. The portable speaker that dramatically didn’t work for the show’s introduction, Roonie who didn’t catch at all the suggestions to find his glasses, Captain Goosebumps who tried to tell her story, but because of a too loud audience gave up, pants worn on arms even though the audience was screaming that they were pants. The highlight, I have to say, has been a group in the audience that showed up half way through the show and got harshly welcomed by Captain Goosebumps “You are late! Shame on you!” but at the same time warmly welcomed by Roonie “No, don’t worry, it’s fine! Welcome!”.
Uncover/Discover masterfully portrays with humorous tenderness how much our relationship with the others is precious to discover ourselves. Everyone can discover themselves by putting a nose on and being a clown that gets uncovered in moments of hesitant goofiness, embarrassed misunderstanding and overwhelming shyness – while trying to match the expectation, to be cool, to wear the clothes expected to be worn and when we don’t find the voice to express what we feel, exactly like Ronnie, Baħ and Captain Goosebumps.
