STAGE REVIEW: The End @ GIFT Festival, BALTIC, Gateshead (29.04.22)

Sitting somewhere between comedic and tragic, irreplaceable and disposable, personal and private, THE END is a tour de force performance art piece which pushes so hard that it can’t help but impact its environment.   

Delivering an artistic outcome that mixes the deeply moving elements of Marina Abramovic with the deliberately perplexing comedy of Andy Kaufman, artists Bertrand Lesca and Nasi Voutsas use a combination of acts (clockwise running, choreographed/impromptu gymnastics, synchronised chair balancing) to ask interesting questions about humankind; who are we, why do we often forget how amazing the human body is, and how do we remember the joys of childhood?    

Brave and ambitious, the beauty of THE END, aside from its delivery, is the way Lesca and Voutsas bend time; pushing comedic moments beyond their immediate humour and into uncomfortable Kaufman-esque levels of squeamishness and holding human dance states for so long that they remind you of the joys of childhood and the feelings of being able to control your body for the first time.   

Using their sense of spacing and timing as the key ingredients to THE END, Lesca and Voutsas deliver a deeply moving show that is brave and astonishingly impactful.