The Physicality of Performance

This weekend I saw Desir, an erotic, adult circus of acrobats and gymnasts. It plays at Spiegel World, the wonderful German-style, performance-art circus tent at the South Street Seaport.



And I finally saw Naked Boys Singing, the all dancing, all singing, all naked musical that has run in New York City for 10 years.


The sex appeal of these shows is obvious. But after the titillation of fit bodies stripped bare waned I noticed something else entirely ... the physicality of performance.

Singing, dancing and even just speaking in a stage voice all require quite a lot of physical exertion. The signs of this exertion, however, are usually concealed by costumes and makeup. Watching the performers in these two shows and the athletes in the Olympics I've been fascinated by how the body moves and works to achieve these feats.

Singers' diaphragms rise and fall. Gymnasts' muscles become taught and ropey revealing the fibers. Dancers' and swimmers' expanding and contracting chests reveal their huge lung capacity and voracious need of oxygen.

But even the subtle signs are interesting, the tense of abdominals needed to project a voice in a theater, the sheen of sweat on a chest or a small of the back, and the little flourishes of movement used to maintain balance. By the end of his Naked Boy Singing solo song and dance number, one of the actor's whole body flushed the most adorable shade of pink.

From now on when I go to the theater, I'll be picturing the performers naked ... and not for my usual reasons.