GUTTER – a nuanced dissection of populist news, celebrity culture, and reducing everything to the level of gossip (Off The Rails Dance at The MAC until Sunday 29 October) #biaf23

Some of the strongest work featured at Belfast International Arts Festival has been that (like Rhino) which embraced the imagination and creative power of an ensemble to produce something that was greater than the sum of the already talented individuals involved.

Off The Rails’ GUTTER follows this trend with its takedown of modern journalistic excess and audience bias towards news and commentary that fits their own agenda. It looks at the collision point between populist journalism and the celebrity status endowed upon and enjoyed by some presenters. What happens when you’re surfing along the wave of likes and the crest collapses and you tumble into the deep waters of cancellation? Are the viewers and readers and social platform users as complicit in this madness as the producers of the news who kowtow to the desire to gain shock-jock approval ratings? Have we created a world of gossip-mongers?

GUTTER does this very accessibly through the medium of dance. In a series of scenes that eventually come round full circle, Kevin Coquelard takes on the role of presenter, taking instructions from an unseen director to learn how to stand out, work an audience, and have presence on screen. At first diffident, he embraces the need to be a showman.

Soon he turns into a stage manager and we realise that even the adjustment of the studio furniture can be a non-neutral act of performance. Cameras are positioned and Conan McIvor’s live and recorded video mastery adds another dimension.

Recognisable classical themes are appropriated and pleasingly subverted with social media sound effects by Garth McConaghie. Sound from above the heads and behind the audience keeps our skin in the dangerous game being acted out in front of us. One incredibly powerful scene sees a robust debate (real audio from recognisable voices) being conducted as if the speakers (represented by pairs of shoes using Sarah Jane Sheils’ precision spotlighting to animate their voices) were instruments in an orchestra.

Artistic director and choreographer Eileen McClory introduces nuance through repetition which exposes how what plausibly starts out as good technique can quickly get twisted and hyped out of hand, leading to instability and catastrophe. Raising the tempo of a repeating routine is another device that underlines how easily the intelligibility of the message can be lost as something spins out of control. News is breaking in more than one way.

GUTTER suggests that some journalism and some audiences no longer value facts and integrity over performance and approval. Coquelard’s intimate dance with a camera hints at narcissism and the neediness of some Instagram/TikTok reels. As an audience, we’re never allowed to stray far from our own involvement in the vicious circle though both unwilling and quite knowing manipulation.

There’s a coherence to the multi-disciplinary storytelling of GUTTER that uses just 50 minutes to make its pitch. Hats off to dramaturg Hanna Slättne who’s helped keep the performance sharp and to the point. Coquelard’s relentless movement and lipsyncing is a delight to watch. But his on-stage antics are significantly enhanced by the quality of the beautiful sound, light and video work with which he interacts.

Just two performances of GUTTER remain at The MAC on Sunday 29 October (14:30 and 19:45) as part of Belfast International Arts Festival. It’s another example of international quality work that has been made in Northern Ireland but is not constrained to speaking to local audiences. The physicality, the video clips of news output, and the lure of gossip over impartiality is universal. 

Belfast International Arts Festival continues until 5 November.

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