What's On 19.7.02

Like all effective terrorist organisations, shadowy performance collective shunt. here presenting their latest curio inspired by the gunpowder Plot o 1605, fully appreciate the value of surprise. Ok, so their methods might be more closely allied to the japeries of Dada, Fluxus or KLF than to anything al-Quida might dream up. But, nonetheless, just when you least expect it – kazoon: another dazzling explosion of theatrical inventiveness studded with lethal shards of surreal honour. The aftermath is a succession of perplexing stage pictures – both funny and disturbing – that remain lodged in the mind long after the show.
Shunt’s modus operandi also presents critics with a dilemma – how to describe their antics without spoiling it for prospective punters. Shunt will surly not include me on their hit list if I describe their opening scenario. Here, the audience is ushered into their headquarters a disused railway arch just round the corner from Bethnal green Tube –by besuited blokes and power dressed women, all in bobbed black wigs and lugubrious dog masks. We are then issued with tags denoting different countries of the world and seated, together with performers round large conference table straight out of Dr. Strangelove. Phone ring, alarms sound, delegates spout conference speak, television relay CCTV footage of a proposed target and then there’s the situation with the biscuits to be resolved. Throughout, trains rumble by ominously overhead, lime bombes exploding in the distance.
Is it all a comment on violent left wing / religious extremism – or state sponsored terrorism? Whatever, myself and several other were caught completely off guard by what happened next – the only real casualty being my drink ( yes, you can drink and smoke throughout, should you wish- and the bottled beer, purchased from a mop topped dog man was only £2) that got caught in the cross fire.
Heightening all such coup de theatre is the technically superb use of sound and lighting, while a young, fearless cast perform with such straight faced commitment, that proceedings, for all their frequent hilarity, never become just silly.
Ultimately, did Dance Bear Dance broaden by perspective on a world poised on the precipice on a world poised on the precipice of nuclear conflagration? No, but it helped me laugh off some of the dread, at least momentarily. And why do I keep thinking of death and destruction in terms of the images that shunt chose to lob at us?

Oliver Jones