Harbourfront World Stage//Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods – Do Animals Cry

Reviewed by Paula Citron

If you’re going to keep the audience hostage for two hours without an intermission, you better have something to say. Mercifully, this time Meg Stuart, the American choreographer via Brussels and Berlin, has created dance theatre that is Euro without the Trash.

In Do Animals Cry, Stuart and her multi-national cast examine the family. In a series of vignettes, the dynamics between parents and children are dissected from every conceivable angle. There is a lot of humour, but also heartache as well.

For example, there is the mother who performs a drum roll every time the son intones bad news which he calls good news. The daughter of a household with two brothers who attracts attention through graphic pornography poses. And then there’s the family’s hilarious relationship with a dog.

Stuart’s over the top set has to be seen to be believed, while Hahn Rowe’s music fits the theatricalities like a glove.

Do Animals Cry continues at the Fleck Dance Theatre until Saturday.

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Do Animals Cry
Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods
Harbourfront World Stage
Choreographed by Meg Stuart
Performed by Joris Camelin, Alexander Jenkins, Adam Linder, Anja Müller, Kotomi Nishiwaki and Frank Willens
Fleck Dance Theatre, Mar. 3 to 6, 2010
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