I saw this group perform at the weekend. I loved it. There are many adjectives one can use to describe the performance, e.g.sexually-charged, dramatic, gripping, bold, erotic, skilful, complex, vigorous, exciting, climactic.
But on reflection, my adjective of choice, which I think gets more to the heart of the performance, is 'honest' - because I loved the way it unashamedly portrayed the sexual thoughts and fantasies that people think but seldom (if ever) articulate. That's what's great about art - it provides the freedom to express visually what people rarely (if ever) express verbally in conversation. Thus, the performance provided 'visual conversation' about such thoughts/fantasies/feelings as submission, domination, abuse, oral, anal, desire, lust, energy, frustration and release (and no doubt others too).
The two (out of three) Saut de Basque pieces that I saw were reminiscent of soft-porn girl-on-girl action with strap-ons.
Now I have watched a fair amount of porn in my time and my favourite genre happens to be girl-on-girl with strap-ons. But even then, porn rapidly becomes boring. This is because there is generally no sense of real relationships between the characters and therefore no dramatic tension. Moreover, there is often nothing aesthetically pleasing about the f*cking - one may as well just watch dogs going at it in the park.
This is why the excellent choreography was so appealing - injecting artistry, and aesthetic appeal for the audience/voyeurs, into the otherwise bland mechanics of sex.
Saut de Basque had drama in the relationships - submission, domination, switching - and beautiful choreography which truly fitted the description of dance as 'the vertical expression of a horizontal intention'.
Moreover, dance aside, the other physical acts looked and felt completely real. When the girls w*nked, groped, went-down and took it from behind, I felt they were driven by real lust (rather than mere choreography) - so real in fact that I suspect the performers must actually be bisexual (if not gay); and if not, then that just shows what good actors they are.
The characters were very appealing, particularly in the three-girl number. The sense I made of the piece was that there were two dominatrixes (with big d*cks) starting the story by w*nking in anticipation of the arrival of their submissive sex-toy/slave, who they subsequently proceeded to use unflinchingly and voraciously for their personal gratification (uuhh! - it's arousing just thinking about it). And I liked the use of props: the chairs naturally enabled the dancers to adopt even more erotic postures in their choreography; I loved the use of strap-ons - that the dominant pair had bigger d*cks than their slave. The strap-ons looked fantastic; there is nothing so mesmerising as the sight of sexy athletic women wearing, and doing things with, menacing thrusting strap-ons (one of which was erect - another sight to grab and hold one's attention, a girl with an hard-on).
All the other acts that night only had an incidental, trivial fetish relevance. For example: the magician-comedian's only fetish connection was that he happened to whip the cards out of a slave's mouth; the gymnast's only connection was that she happened to be dressed in rubber.
By contrast, Saut de Basque was the only act that seemed to get inside the human sexual psyche, exploring fantasies and relationships - which, after all, is what fetish is meant to be all about. I describe them as an 'honest' act because the attitude behind the performance seems to be, 'This is what fetish is about, so this is what we will portray, as explicitly as we like, no holding back and no apologies.'
I look forward to seeing them perform again.
