A collection of distorted cabaret motifs that leave you in awe of their two performers
Performance art, dance and cabaret are weaved together by Samir Kennedy and Sean Murray in It’s Got Legs!!!!!. Over an hour the pair oscillate between being lovers and competitors as they twinkle around in miniskirts and double themselves in handmade machines. The duo chop their performance – and selves – into parts and, in doing so, beautifully remind us of how arbitrary all our delineations are.
The performance starts with two bare bottoms facing the audience. Both men have tights nervously clustered around their ankles and slowly inch around the stage on laced up high heeled booties. They never turn around, like avoidant swans, floating to jazz: it is weirdly tender and compelling. This is our first moment. We then move into a number of sequences.
In all of the sequences, something is disturbed or off kilter. The tights around the ankles are echoed in the red sequinned dress that is cut in half and worn by both. The pair speak in animal noises and song. They create little machine marionettes for themselves, eerie doubles that linger around the stage. In one sequence they blow air into a tube that inflates two model legs that they make dance. In another they copulate as chickens skilfully lip-syncing to birdsong as they thrust into each other. Each sequence builds on the last – even if only to add confusion and contrast.
There is a mounting tension between the two which becomes more warped in the final scenes. Their synchronicity breaks down: They drag each other off stage on towels. They slosh tiny cups of cherry, puff on fags as they grind their hips and angrily hump the air. They fight over a t-shirt and trousers, stealing them off each other’s bodies, repeatedly clambering over each other and stepping inside shared trousers with no regard for their nakedness. There is a growing angst that is beautiful.
It’s Got Legs!!!!! is disjointed and unruly – constant dress and undress, physical tenderness and friction. It makes a mockery of performance yet is inexplicably delightful. It is carried by Kennedy and Murray who bore into the audience. They are ferocious, dripping with life, love and pain. They have a presence that reaches far into the audience and, as all art should do, makes you thankful that people are willing to give their bodies, minds and hearts to a room full of strangers.
It’s Got Legs!!!!!’s run at the Southbank Centre has now concluded.