Dance Review: Cock-Pit
Why men should watch men dance
special contribution by Devon Cooke

Wen-Wei Dance
Scotiabank Dance Centre (677 Davie Street, Vancouver)
Feb. 24-28, 2009

I spent a fine Friday evening last week watching Cock-Pit, a suitably suggestive and ambiguous title for Wen Wei Wang's equally suggestive dance piece. It featured a woman and four scantily clad men, one of whom was pointed out to me as "Scottie-too-Hottie" (my female companion agreed). The show was highly enjoyable, funny at times, and poignant at others. It was also highly sexual - a fact attested by the palpable female enjoyment in the audience. As a man, I certainly enjoyed listening to that audience, but I also enjoyed the performance.

Now, when a man admits to enjoying watching dance, and especially when that dance involves highly muscled men strutting around in little more than tight-fitting boxer shorts, there's one very natural question that arises: Is he gay? Perhaps it's not so much a question as an assumption, but, as a straight male, I'm here to tell you that while that assumption may often hold true, straight men don't know what they're missing when it comes to dance.

I must admit to being a little apprehensive going into the show about how I would handle the "eww" factor (as in "eww, naked men!"), but my worries were unfounded. The show was engaging, enlightening, and I didn't feel like my sexuality was compromised. Why? Because I felt myself empathizing with the men on stage rather than objectifying them. Cock-pit is (among other things) an exploration of gender and, especially, being male. As gender exploration goes, it's pretty straightforward: The men are manly, the woman is womanly, and there's barely the slightest hint that there might be any other way of arranging things. While this might be a less than complete sketch of gender, it does speak to the fairly rigid gender roles that most people fall into, and it made me look at men (and myself) in a new light.

Watching Cock-pit was like watching a hockey game or playing poker while consuming cold pizza and beer. It reminded me what it means to be a man, but, unlike hockey or poker, it also gave me a sense of how ridiculous we look to the other 51% of the population. I'm sure the women in the audience had a different perspective.

I've never thought of feathers as being particularly male, but when they're six feet long and stuck down the front of your pants, they're a fairly obvious symbol. Cock-pit used this symbol to good effect, and much of the comedy in the show came from painting a portrait of man's endless obsession with his penis. With the help of the feathers, the men in the show sword fight and show off, bargain and compete, and, most of all, fight with each other for the attention of the lone female dancer in the cast.

This oasis of femininity provided a sharp point of contrast to the testosterone-laced energy in the rest of the dancers. Her presence helped remind the audience that maleness exists in opposition to the female - and provided a welcome place to rest my male-weary eyes. With my heightened awareness of my masculinity, I found my eyes drawn strongly to her whenever she was on stage, and her dancing made me equally aware of the difference between our two genders.

There is much more to Cock-pit than simple gender differences. Many sections were suggestive of birds (cocks of course) or insects, and one particularly memorable scene had the four men negotiating a sale of some sort using creative body language and a distinctly Mandarin-sounding gibberish.  But, even these neutral scenes were cast in the context of masculinity thanks to their relationship with the rest of the choreography.

At times Wen Wei's Chinese heritage showed through, and it was interesting watching his five non-Chinese dancers absorb this and transform it in a very Vancouver way.  The most obvious example was the Mandarin gibberish I've already mentioned, but the use of feathers throughout the piece had a very Chinese theatricality to it.  The feathers served as swords, wings, antennae, and helped emphasize and exaggerate the movement of whatever body part they happened to be attached to.

Cock-pit was a wonderfully creative and entertaining show, and, while I've picked it apart for analysis here, its strengths lie in the talent and energy of its dancers and choreographer, not the significance of its theme. The dance is an exploration, not a theory, and it's worth seeing for the feelings it evokes. For me, it evoked the thoughts about maleness that you have just read, but my version is hardly the definitive one. For that, you'll have to go see it for yourself...

Cock-pit played at the Scotiabank Dance Centre from February 24th to 28th. It featured David Raymond, Josh Martin, Scott Augustine, and Edmond Kilpatrick, as well as lone female Alison Denham, and was Choreographed by Wen Wei Wang.