ROOTS: (Overseas) & Is Any Body Home? – Streatham Space Project, London

Choreographer: Wency Lam

There’s something of Sarah Kane in Wency Lam’s double-bill of dance centred around migration. The first piece, Is Any Body Home?, is like something out of Blasted with its themes of cannibalism and torture. The second and better piece (Overseas) at least has nervous moments of laughter in its grim portrayal of protest. To give meaning to either of these works is difficult as they are both expressionistic, but the sense of disquiet is a memorable one.

Is Any Body Home? begins with a dancer (Hsin-yu Wu) bringing onto the stage various body limbs, a leg and an arm to start off with. Meanwhile, another dancer (Esme Lovell) stands in a spotlight shouting “Hello?” to someone who never answers. The sound of metal gates suggests that this woman is in some kind of prison. Eventually, the two performers meet, but it’s never clear what the relationship is between them. Sometimes, they seem to be playing with the artificial limbs and, at others, they seem to be fighting over them as if they are items of food. One of the performers hungrily sinks her teeth into the fake leg.

At the end of this short 20-minute piece there is a surprise, and quite shocking if you can see it. Because the reveal happens on the floor, only the people in the audience in the front few rows are witness to the coup de théàtre as there is no rake in the seating at Streatham Space Project. It’s a shame that this moment is not visible to all because it is a sobering way to refer to the dangerous journeys that migrants undertake.

The second piece, (Overseas), has more of a discernible story running through it as two people emerge from under a huge crinoline skirt as its wearer slumbers. The two dancers could be searching for their new identities in a new home. They dance around and then over each other and occasionally it’s impossible to know where one body begins and the other ends. The couple is joined by a third dancer and all three appear to be in danger and must walk some kind of tightrope.

The facial expressions of the three performers are wonderful, especially those of John Hardy, helping the story along, although most of it remains stubbornly oblique. The black skirt returns and there’s a hint that the garment may be the mourning attire of Queen Victoria, herself a symbol of Britain’s colonial project. But when the skirt changes wearers, does this signal a kind of success for a newcomer navigating the traditions of a foreign country? Perhaps, but there is a glimmer of hope in the dance’s conclusion.

With a simple light design from Ali Hunter and a grumbling sound design from Michael Tang, ROOTS showcases Wency Lam’s stark style. The stories take the backseat in this dark aesthetic where atmosphere is everything.