PRESENTING an intoxicating marriage of pulp fiction, film noir and dance theatre, Pulp begins with a hazy dream before transforming into a silent movie where bodies hide secrets.
Created by Underground Dance Theatre ( Bok, Mode), following its run at this year’s National Arts Festival(NAF) in Grahamstown, the production will transfer to the Rosebank (July 7 - 16) and Galloway (July 20 - 23) theatres respectively.
“The narrative and feel of the piece is inspired by pulp novels, which were campy and over-the-top stories printed on poor quality paper and churned out at a rapid pace,” explains Steven van Wyk, who co-created the piece alongside fellow performers Thalia Laric and Cilna Katzke.
“These stories usually featured stock characters such as the femme fatale, the bored housewife and dipsomaniac private eye. Our show takes these stereotyped figures — and then, by emptying the piece of narrative action — aim to reduce these characters to pulp (their essence).
“When no one is watching and they don’t have their big dramatic narrative to keep them occupied, we as dancers wanted to find out who these people were behind closed doors.”
Describing the overarching plot used as part of the creation of the world that is Pulp, Laric adds that there’s a surface narrative involving Velda, Patty and Joe.
“They are two sisters and Joe’s a private detective. And there’s also a suspicious red suitcase. This narrative, however, eventually implodes and we are left with three archetypical characters without plot.
“The essence of each individual character then takes focus. Who are these archetypes? What is their shadow side? And what happens when they find themselves in the sparseness of a choreographic landscape, instead of a dramatic one?”
Referring to the production’s other major influence, Van Wyk directs the conversation to film noir.
“It is a genre with many specific hallmarks such as constant chain-smoking, rainy streets, dramatic chiaroscuro lighting and permanent night time.
“It is an intrinsically filmic genre, in that a huge element of its stylisation is how the camera shots are set up. I love how in film noir so much of what we are looking at has been obscured.
“Someone is being murdered, for instance, but the only thing we can see in the shot is his hand while the rest of his figure is hidden behind someone standing in the foreground of the shot. I wanted to explore how could the feel of those camera angles translate into the world of live theatre.”
Because film noir is intrinsically married to jazz, translating the choreography into the language of the jazz dance elevates Pulp into something tongue-in-cheek as well.
“We thought if we could take jazz dance very seriously it would match with the jazz music, but would also poke fun at the worlds of jazz and noir. At the same time, the piece also journeys through various types of jazz.”
Among the pieces of music used are Miles Davis’ Generique, Charade by Henry Mancini and Dance of the Lilliputian by Leith Stevens and Shorty Rogers.
“Near the end the music slips towards much more avant garde jazz by Erik Truffaz and Murcof, and the movement similarly slides to a more postmodern place.
“Ultimately this all translates into a show that is dream-like. It starts off feeling very familiar and cliched, but then slides to a much weirder, darker place that delves into other aspects of the psyche.”
The key element to the production’s success, Van Wyk believes, was choosing to make a dance work specifically for small theatres and stages.
“No one does that. We wanted to squash the dance right on top of the audience so they can’t always see everything. We wanted it to feel like a really full diorama into which the audience is voyeuristically peering.
“Film noir is paradoxically a claustrophobic world that is also very empty and lonely, like an Edward Hopper painting. Stylistically we’ve tried to achieve that by having a tiny little stage space that is full of people and stuff, but yet also feels lonely and minimal.”
Featuring a moveable frame that consists of two venetian blinds (a noir hallmark) that could obscure even more of the stage space, part of the question that Pulp asks is — literally and figuratively — how are these stereotyped characters framed?
“We use the frame set as a type of camera lens to focus the audience’s attention to a sort of live theatre version of a closeup. How does that affect one’s viewing and understanding of a character when you are just looking at their legs, or just their heads?
“The frame mirrors the narrative: it is stable and used predictably at the beginning, but then it starts to destabilise and swirl around the room — as if the cameraman took LSD and he’s just panning round and round the room.”
Costumes were created by award-winning costume and puppet designer Hilette Stapelberg ( Arende, Handspring Puppet Company, Tragedy of Richard III).
“The costumes are monochromatic so they look like we’ve stepped out a black and white film noir. They’re designed to support the stereotypes,” says Katzke.
“Velda, the femme fatale is designed to be reminiscent of Marlene Dietrich, who created a new look of female sexiness that drew from men’s fashion to make it even more sexy in its androgyny.”
She goes on to describe Patty, the housewife, as “picture-perfect with a little silk bow around her neck”, similar to a twenties ingénue.
“But, look closely, her tiny high-waisted shorts are a nod to Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice. This implies that she might not be as innocent as apple pie.”
l To book, see www.rosebank theatre.com and www.waterfront theatreschool.co.za