Dance review: Overstuffed by visual feast

Optical Appetite was like a visual aphrodisiac - dirty, raw and sexual.

The 50-minute, one-night performance, tautly choreographed by the London-based Richard Causer, was a testament to lust, desire and gluttony told through a dozen dancers' gyrating hips and their capers with food.

The show was visually stunning, with a smorgasbord of bodies and succulent, fleshy fruit on display.

A whole taster menu was destroyed onstage and the first few rows of the theatre were a designated "splash zone".

In one segment, three dancers plunged their faces and bodies into cream cakes and mounted spotlighted pedestals, whipping their limbs back and forth to send flecks of white raining over the stage and the audience.

In another, handfuls of pearly brown grain were snatched from burlap sacks and flung towards the rafters, showering the dancers who were rollicking below.

The vanilla fragrance of cream, the subtle tang of crushed citrus fruit and the earthiness of snapped vegetable stalks filled the theatre, making it an aromatic feast as well as a visual one.

The bodies of the dancers were also a sight to behold, as each finely muscled figure was clad in next to nothing.

The girls were barely covered with flimsy grey undergarments or by a red-and-black variation on the theme.

The men were in grey trunks, with the exception of Matthew Goh, who bravely spent most of the show in nothing but tighty whities.

While the show careened between sensual and overtly sexual, it was never subtle. At some points though, it did veer towards gratuitous wantonness.

Smeared in cake, a pair of female dancers caressed their chests in moves that would not have looked out of place in a strip club.

In another segment, a male dancer, on all fours, clambered after a female dancer, his tongue hanging out a la Miley Cyrus at the recent MTV Video Music Awards.

At the climax of the show, the whole ensemble smeared white whipped cream over Goh as he stood near-naked against the exposed back wall of the theatre.

As the cream began to melt, it attained a particular quality and viscosity that I am sure was intentional, and did not look entirely chaste.

While the food was sometimes a distraction from the dancers, Causer's choreography was never a letdown. It was unhesitating and sharp, and was fantastically executed by the ensemble.

The lighting design by Dorothy Png is also worth a mention as it drew the eye and directed attention without being forceful or obvious.

Watching the dancers cavort on stage, slathered in the spilled juices of broken fruit, made me feel like I was complicit in some guilty pleasure.

It was a fantastic meal but by the end of Optical Appetite, I was slightly overstuffed.

lting@sph.com.sg

Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.