Chained Men

A new production by Kage Physical Theatre explores masculinity through the language of dance, says Richard Watts.

MELBOURNE’S KAGE PHYSICAL Theatre Company is renowned for a style of dance theatre that is rich and raw in its physicality and its humour.

Headlock, their latest production, appears to be moving into grimmer territory. The piece explores the complex physicality and sensitivities of masculinity, and is set over the first 24 hours of a young man’s prison term.

“We really wanted it to be a story about family connection,” director and Kage co-founder Kate Denborough explains. “Gradually the original cast of five whittled down to a cast of three, and became three brothers. The production is told, or seen through the eyes of the middle brother.”

The original concept for Headlock was “an exploration of the physicality of Greco-Roman and pro- wrestling,” Denborough says.

“Because of that we were working with an all male cast right from the start, and then also we had various storylines, and we were trying to work out which would evolve into the strongest. It was originally about a father and a son, and it has come a long way over the last couple of years, into a condensed and focused story about a young man and his relationship with his brothers, and the sense of connection he feels in an isolated social setting.”

The production’s origins lie partially in an experience Denborough had as a teenager, writing to an American prisoner on death row.

“I revisited all the letters I’d received from the inmate and I suppose that, in a way, having recently had a son myself, the whole idea of this invisible armour that adolescent males seem to put on to protect themselves emotionally, or just to survive, was an incredibly interesting subject matter that I wanted to explore. And I wanted that exploration to be in a physical sense, because male energy is so often incredibly physical.”

Consequently, given Denborough’s background in dance (which includes an Outstanding Achievement Award for Independent Dance at the 2004 Australian Dance Awards) the piece explores its themes through the performances of Luke Hockley, Byron Perry and Gerard Van Dyck, as they blur the lines between dancing and wrestling.

“It felt like an incredibly relevant and potent subject matter for physical performers, or dancers and actors, to explore this really, really rich energetic sense of what male adolescence really bubbles down to,” she explains.

Despite Headlock being about a young man in jail and his relationship with his brothers, Denborough denies that the production should be considered an exploration of a damaged or wounded masculinity.

“It’s about looking at the issues of gender and masculinity in a very modern sense, particularly through young men being incarcerated. All the statistics about young men in prison are really frightening. I’m not interested in excusing criminal behaviour, but in trying to understand, having some sense of empathy into those cycles of violence that young men experience, in order to have a different perspective.”

Working solely with men, rather than with a mixed gender cast with this storyline was of specific interest to Denborough on this production.

Equally important, she explains, was the concept of exploring an adolescent voice without recourse to text.

“It’s the ultimate challenge of a performance style that calls itself dance theatre or physical theatre, any of those non-traditional drama styles.”

Headlock runs from May 18 to June 3 at the Malthouse Theatre. Bookings on 9685 5111.

This article originally appeared in MCV #279, Friday 12th May 2006.