A Response to Phase Lapse

Last Wednesday I attended Phase Lapse, a 20minute devised performance inspired by the traditional Korean poem Gong Mu Do Ha Ga. The element that most appealed to me about the performance was the sheer simplicity of the design concept. The room was entirely bare apart from a number of candles, a hanging cloth, a bowl of water and a live body. The work had a certain confidence about it; by this I mean that every aspect seemed considered and thought through. Nothing was rushed. Everything was paced and the performer held the audience in moments of beautiful stillness; using her body to capture and recreate the ebb and flow of tranquil waters.

I will say, however, that I felt the piece might have benefited from a little more action and that there were moments which could have been exploited to engage the audience a little bit more. Water is not always tranquil; it is sometimes violent and unpredictable. It erodes and weathers. Waves crash and break. Perhaps the stillness of the performance could have also broken at moments to allow for waves of climax to crash and then recede.

When the performer extinguished the last candle, for example, was a moment in which the dramatic potential was not capitalised on. I understood the candles to represent the light of life, and although the performer paid great attention to the extinguishing of the first light, the last four where put into the bowl of water and extinguished together. I felt as though even a simple pause, before the last light was quenched, might have added pathos to the moment.

For me, one of the most successful elements of Phase Lapse was the costume design, which transformed from black into white during the course of the performance. Although I know that the use of the colour white was intended to represent death here, I still read it as a signifier of matrimony. I say this not in criticism, but rather as a compliment. The group aimed to explore the mixing of cultures and this contradiction made me consider my own cultural perspective and how it can limit the way I view and understand things.

However, I think that my misreading of the colour white, as a signifier for matrimony, was unintentionally reinforced by the group’s choice of music for the final moments of the piece, which was a electronic track featuring the sound of church bells (Scaling by µ-Ziq, from the album Royal Astronomy). Another reason that I found it a little jarring to hear this piece of music is that it is already known to me and is in my music collection. Although it is a great track that I really like, because I know it, it coloured the performance for me and I think this is best avoided if possible. Apart from that, the sound design was very nicely mixed. I particularly liked that no one voice dominated over the others. Instead the overlapping voices sounded like the babbling of a brook.

Overall Phase Lapse was a very tight show, which was well conceived and executed with precision and assurance. Congratulations to all involved.