DANZ QUARTERLY Issue No 13 – October, November, December 2008
Suzanne Cowan
Interrogates the Grotesque
By Francesca Horsley
When Suzanne Cowan talks about her forthcoming piece in the
Touch Compass programme she gets a slightly mischievous
twinkle in her eye. While not wishing to give too much away, she
and fellow dancer Adrian Smith will be exploring aspects of the
way that differences in our bodies are viewed – and playing it up
a little.
Her work, ‘Grotteschi’ is part of a new season of works that will
be presented by the integrated dance company as part of Tempo,
Auckland’s dance festival season.
The title is taken from the Italian word for grotto, dark places
she says where hidden gems can be found; “I thought that was
a neat concept because I have been exploring and writing about
disability and its relationship to the grotesque and the history of
the perception of the disabled body and I wanted to reference the
freak show. The richness about voyaging into that territory is like
finding hidden gems.”
But she adds “I hope in a sense to parody it to some extent. It will
be a bit comical – it’s not meant to be dead serious.”
Suzanne is completing her master’s thesis at Auckland
University; writing about the history of the freak show, the bodily
display of abnormality – or supposed abnormality - and how that
may still resonate in disabled dance.
“The freak show was about hybridity – ‘this amazing fish
man or amazing pig woman’. These were popular in the 19th
century, travelling throughout Europe and the US . One of the
psychological functions they played was to reinforce people’s
own sense of rightness, normality, permission to be on the
planet - they could distance themselves saying ‘I am definitely
not that!’”
“An explanation of why they disappeared is that last century they
became politically incorrect; disability became medicalised.
Instead of performing in freak shows, able at least to
make a living and be part of a community, people became
institutionalised and it was not done to peer or gawk at people in
a so-called ‘unfortunate situation’.”
Another element to the freak show, Suzanne says, was that
disabled people were linked with the supernatural. They were
regarded as having ‘other worldliness’, they were ‘magical’;
audiences would be ‘AMAZED’.”
“Of course with no television people didn’t see the same range
of diversity; we see freak shows on television all the time;
extremely obese people is one of the favourite ones.”
Suzanne is exploring an improvisation process in her work that
frees her from traditional theatrical dance aesthetics. “Because
I have been through dance training as an able bodied person and
as a disabled dancer, I am really aware that I will try to emanate
western theatrical dance theatre aesthetics without realising
it – or I will be looking for certain types of movement that will fit
these qualities..
“Now I am interested in exploring the effort involved in
movement. Often with a disabled body the reality of movement is
covered up to make it look smooth, graceful, fluid. The classical
framework disguises the hard work that goes into moving”.
Suzanne says the work is also an exploration of her own
relationship to the grotesque; “I am looking at my personal
relationship to it - my relationship to my body and to the so-called
disabled parts of my body.”
“In a sense I am putting myself on the platter –‘ here I am’ – ‘I am
a little bit strange’ …I am inviting that whole element instead of
trying to cover it up; I’m not trying to minimise it. I want to go in
the other direction and see what that evokes in people.”
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