Making Men
Reviewed by Estela Avalos
Dance Camera West Festival
Through Jan. 12
This review is part of the Z. Clark Branson/Stage Raw/Grow@TheWallis Mentorship Program for Young Journalists
Making Men, a film by Antonie Panier and Harold George with the Dunia Dance Theatre/AfriKera Arts Trust and Mijim Dancers
The setting is in bachelor’s dwelling with plenty of books, coffee, modern furniture, contemporary music and style. Choreographer Harold George recounts memories of his father “smoking, cross-legged, pontificating.” The story follows George’s personal journey to find the least masculine form of expression. He confides that he had no reason to love masculinity, hence his journey through dance. Soon his mind drifts to an imprint of his ancestral memory; a tribal ceremony and communal experience.
Intimacy and closeness between men can make some men uncomfortable. Dancers Tatenda Chabarwa, Tinashe Jerry, Peter Lenso and Carlton Zhanelo symbolize a kind of union as they push the limits of social constraints that state men must avoid each other completely at any level of intimacy. Their movement symbolizes a break from society and its terms for masculinity. The dancers physically engage by circling each other, holding each other up, pushing each other away. One scene finds three of the men lifting up the most isolated man; a kind of rebirth, and then leaving him again as they walk towards the sun. In the end, the break from any repression is successfully communicated by the performers.
Antonie Panier’s cinematic direction of the film includes close-ups, wide angles and impressions of a tribal world. Natural lighting begets shots of the wilderness of Africa. Evening shots at a church also surround dance and ritualistic prayers in the wilderness.
Ultimately George’s repressed memories are seen writhing from within him uncontrollably. He prays and then falls. The end of Making Men poignantly finds Harold George ultimately alone as he recollects his memories of men dancing with movements that seem to summon the earth, later leaping toward the sky.
DANCE CAMERA WEST FESTIVAL at REDCAT, 631 W. Second St., Downtown; and AUTOMATA, 504 Chung King Ct., Chinatown; Thurs.-Sun., screening times vary; through Jan. 12th. Festival Schedule here. Running time: 19:41.
