An inspiring, entertaining and searingly powerful articulation of the difficulties of disability, with a bold call to arms to reclaim self-worth and subvert traditional understandings of physical beauty. Rating
Excellent!
Prepare yourself for a powerful performance as Dan Daw Creative Projects (DDCP) boldly claim the stage of the Grand Hall at Battersea Arts Centre this autumn with EXXY. Daw himself is a queer, disabled artist, and this is his story. It’s about disability, exhausting pain, rejection, but also about collaboration, friendship and embracing self-worth, to ultimately reimagine a shared world.
The story begins in outback South Australia at the backyard where he spent his time with his nan, who never judged him for his disability but allowed him to just be himself. Daw’s image is dominantly framed against the word EXXY (which BAC’s website helpfully explains is Australian slang for ‘expensive’), but soon tennis balls come crashing through, tearing that image to shreds. There’s no putting this guy in a box. Daw is not just disabled but is also an outstanding artist, who has here created a work with its own impact that breaks barriers.
His is a story that speaks of collaborative support, of understanding and of a society where people can be the same but different. He’s joined onstage by Sofía Valdiri, Tiiu Mortley and Joe Brown, and together they vividly articulate the experience of disability. Alongside a spoken narrative, the cast convey with clarity, humour and humanity, how the experience can feel – the exhaustion, relentlessness, pain. We become aware of ‘competitive disability’ and of the urge to re-term who you are and how you function for other people’s comfort. We see them being asked by the medical system to effectively perform their disability, pushing them to function differently, while relentlessly under pressure. In a striking moment, the exercise ends and pennies rain down: they’ve hit the jackpot, but it’s surely painful as the metal strikes. It calls into question the real cost for the disabled individual, not only in financial terms but in agency and self-determination. And what the performance tells us above all is that the most vulnerable people in society are sometimes absolutely the most resilient. It’s inspiring and rather moving.
EXXY is a sensorily impactful, visually impressive piece of work, and not only in the visceral metaphors enacted before us, which resonate through their physical, traumatic familiarity. We also see these humans as performers who unquestionably hold their own, bringing grace and delight in moving together. They reimagine bodily beauty and create a space where we might look differently at ‘others’, redefining dance using their own unique capabilities.
Additionally, Nao Nagai’s superb lighting design brings huge drama, creating importance and urgency in a tale of routinely overlooked individuals. The music too is deeply powerful throughout, with composer Guy Connelly succinctly hitting the bittersweetness of Daw’s success in the words “I tour the world but I can’t butter my own bread”, displayed in conspicuous captions overhead.
The audience is invited to participate, responding to cues on captions; but it is music that creates the ultimate link between us – representative of the mainstream – and these social outsiders, as we are asked to put ‘The Power of Love’ into our mouths and sing. We may indeed be ‘frightened but ready to learn’, but here, in this shared space, is where that education begins.
Come the end, we’ve travelled a long way but nowhere at all, and the company takes a moment to drool: to do what comes naturally and to be themselves, unconcerned with how they are perceived. In a world where divisive issues of social judgment and bigotry are prevalent, actions such as this are enormously timely, and other stories – trans, queer, neurodivergent – additionally resonate in the halo of this act of unmasking, supporting their presence and validity. Drool is art. Drool is revolution.
Co-Produced by: Battersea Arts Centre
Artistic Director DDCP & Co-Director: Dan Daw
Executive Director DDCP & Executive Producer for EXXY: Liz Counsell
Co-Director: Sarah Blanc
Lighting Designer: Nao Nagai
Set & Costume Designer: Kat Heath
Costume Supervisor: Izzie Byers
Video & Creative Caption Design: Sarah Readman
Composer: Guy Connelly
Sound Design: Lewis Gibson
Dramaturg & Co-Writer: Brian Lobel
Production Manager: Froud
Technical Stage Manager: Emily Winsor
Sound Operator: Seb Falcone
EXXY runs at Battersea Arts Centre until Friday 10 October
