Betwixt | Pink Matter Culture
I was blessed enough to be in the audience when Pink Matter Culture brought their development showing of Betwixt to Mad Dance Festival in 2021. I had a phenomenal experience then and this experience – somehow – was even more exhilarating. Pink Matter Culture is a dance collective founded with the intention of highlighting and up-skilling the local street dance scene, in particular its members who would otherwise be marginalised. And their maiden/sophomore creative venture speaks to this mission quite specifically.
Betwixt sees five artists become heightened versions of themselves as they embody the energies of the five elements – water, air, fire, earth, and spirit. They each share a story of ruin and resilience through the combined power of spoken word poetry and various styles of street dance. An experience that can only be described as ritualistic. A reckoning and a purging of cosmic proportions.
Every aspect of this work is deeply purposeful. The sequence of the stories speaks to the relationship between the elements. We see the water dance with the air, who in turn fuels the fire, who in turn cleanses the earth, before spirit comes and weaves them all together. Each story is so raw and specific to the performer it belongs to but is told in universal ways. The decision to have words – a weapon of the mind – be used to describe trauma and the body – a tool of the soul – be used to transcend it speaks to trauma’s psychologically invasive nature. The dance languages of each performer are deeply tied to the element they represent but are all able to sing to each other as the work progresses. Additionally, the group sequences provide insight into a wondrous intersection of all the physical vocabularies.
The performers themselves are all glorious to behold. Huda Fadlelmawla as spirit is caretaker and conjurer. Her poetry guides each dancer through their journey and brings the audience along for the ride in a way that both nurtures and provokes. Jazi Othman as water is torrential and trickling. Tidal waving the audience with a dialogue on the cost of confessing our love. Amy Zhang as air wild and whispering. Gail forcing us to confront what it means to pack parts of ourselves away for the sake of others. Joshua Taliani as fire is dynamic and devastating. He questions our commitment to that which seeks to burn through us. Wanida Serce as earth is unyielding and unguarded. She kicks up the sediment coating each of our inner children, reminding us that they need nourishment too. All four of their bodies are just as eloquent as the poet with whom they share the stage.
All of this in combination had me and the friends I attended with gasping, swearing, snapping, screaming, and weeping. The rest of the audience was fairly silent. They were presumably enchanted by what they were bearing witness to and afraid to break the spell. They were suspended, held in the in-between, the Betwixt.
As Fadlelmawla implies with her words at the beginning and end of the work: Everything is an exchange, everything is Betwixt, Betwixt is everything. This work is truly phenomenal and a catalyst for healing in all who witness it. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
