Bullyache: A Good Man Is Hard To Find comment – banking bros face their own bad game | Dancing

Meit’s like the aftermath of the most stressful office party. A large boardroom table, a man is naked on the floor, one has his suit pants on his feet and another is urinating on a glass of whiskey. What follows feels like a classic, not-so-subtle version of a TV show: a horror game of power and authority in a cold, silent setting. At this point, the washerman comes to wash off the bodily fluids and then sings the Ave Maria. This is an unexpected world from Bullyache, the creative duo of Courtney Deyn and Jacob Samuel (plus five dancers on stage), who create a very dark theater.

The installation by Tor Studio has a wall of broken glass, as if someone has driven a car through it, but it turns out The Good Man Is Hard to Find is about people who drove through the world economy in 2008. Among them, in a sudden change, it turns into a game and tells us that these lost cretins are the banks that caused the financial crisis. What will be their future?

The piece was inspired by the secret society of the San Francisco Bohemian Club, a meeting of rich and powerful men who participate in various rituals including cremation of the dead, where members get rid of their worries – or, in the eyes of Bullyache, free themselves from guilt. The explanation is not clearly explained in the show, but it follows the ritual of the Rite of Spring-ish, which was based on Shostakovich’s chamber symphony in C minor, a famous confusion with ancient leaps and Latin American swivel and a little classical dance including religious images.

We are given stories about these men, but they are a little more along the lines of “big bad banks”. Additional details can be very powerful. Are they real people, what are their stories, and what do they make sense at 18 years old? If you’re going to be political, make it bite.

The atmosphere is perfect (if depressing) as Bullyache write their songs – cranium-shaking sounds and songs of pain and loneliness. There are some pretty obvious ambitions here, but the show is reaching for something bigger.