Introduction

For example, Melt Down, a piece by choreographer Rosemary Lee, which I saw under the chill sun of a late October afternoon in 2012 in Granary Square, a large, open and – on that occasion – rather quietly populated space between the Regent's Canal and the converted industrial facade of Central Saint Martin's college in King's Cross, north London. ¹ Melt Down is about twenty minutes long and is performed by twenty or so men: men of various ages and appearances, men dressed as men, in their shirts, their jackets, their scarves and their hats, walking out towards us silently and deliberately from behind the college building, going straight to the spot where the performance has to happen, spacing themselves out from one another, each assuming their place and then standing still. They raise their arms above their heads: a posture that acknowledges the occasion they are part of, although not a gesture of address, I take it, towards any of us, the spectators. We are scattered around, some of us quite close to the action, others watching from the canal bridge, or from across the road, approaching the performance not by coming across, but merely by looking over. There is a large bell, a proper old foundry bell in a standing frame, which another man strikes to mark the passing minutes, although the chimes sound irregular and the minutes seem to dilate immeasurably as, with the striking of the bell, the men fall. They fall imperceptibly. That is, our vision is not slow enough to follow them. At least, my vision is not slow enough: I only know for sure they are falling because at each chime of the bell they have all fallen a little further. I will have seen by the end what has taken place, without altogether having seen it happen: like watching something melt. Something – the something that is themselves, these men – is being pressured into collapse. But also not pressured, not altogether: they choose to fall, they are here to show us what falling is like, or what falling is like for them; although at a certain point it will not have been possible not to fall, all the way down. ² They lie on the ground for a while, still and silent. And then they get up and leave.