The 10-minute screendance film by French director and choreographer Fu Li deals directly and frontally with the topic of the masses. He announces it in the title of the work, choreographs it in collaboration with 30 dancers, suggests it through the musical landscape, and keeps it on a tight leash through the movements of the camera.

Created in 2018, the film can be read as a kind of a reaction to a historical worldwide wave of protests and demonstrations. At that time, the news did not cover one particular major political event, but many upheavals through the faces of thousands of unknown people on the streets, exercising their right for freedom of speech in Iran, the Czech Republic, Iraq, Hong Kong, France, Spain, Britain, Lebanon, Bolivia, Chile… We were hearing not just about one hot spot, but about hundreds of hotspots scattered around the globe. No matter how different in nature these protests were, we felt there was something bigger that connected them and shared the same boiling point, spilled the chaos and multiplied the created tension.

Fu Li’s film seems to reflect this common nerve without directly illustrating it and without engaging us in a linear historical reading. The screendance artwork carries that vibe, but it is also a much deeper and more comprehensive cut of the theme of the collective body, and its ability to reject and shelter the individual within itself. In the film, in addition to shots reminiscent of the streets of the riot, we also find landscapes that we associate with waves of migration flows, or faces of the demonstration masses, or maybe the multitude of people celebrating during festivals or club events, or Olympic games, or just with the daily crowds in the big cities…

The overall implication is achieved through casual choreography of both the movement of the dancers and the movement of the camera. In the film there is a lightness of the forms, smoothness of the shots, clarity of the scenes, and a sonic elegance that helps the coded messages to be read and experienced with the same ease, smoothness, clarity, and elegance. The screendance artwork moves on the edge of extremes, but there is enough space for the viewer not to “drown” in abstract thoughts and reflections. On the contrary- to “emerge” amidst the rich palette of sensations.

Because Mass is

the indiscriminate hubbub that comes from everywhere…

the blinding light of news-flow we want to shake off…

the moments of hesitation when we try to hear the voices in our head…

the gentle passage through the crowd to make our way…

the growing howl from everywhere…

our sharp breaths and uncoordinated runs…

our terror of losing ourselves…

our fear of global shocks/turmoil…

the dusty landscapes in front of us…

and the more explicit breaths born of them…

our more confident movements…

the bursts of laughter we sometimes allow ourselves…

and  its hidden hysteria…

the feeling of being abandoned and alone…

the state of searching for help…

the moment of building trust…

the encounter of the past with the future, which we skillfully observe from aside…

the moment of miracle…

the sudden playfulness…

reaching the peak of exaltation…

and again the feeling of abandonment…

and the desire to escape…

the release “from the cage” in which we had resided…

our ability to stand together…

our capability to cheer up the Other via ourselves…

to “feed” the Other through ourselves…

the mechanical movements we make…

the common directions we follow…

the coordinated forms we recognize…

the different faces we meet…

all their individual efforts…

the collective escape of which we are a part of.

This screendance artwork is a successful attempt to portray the crowd up close, to bring the viewer closer to the “hurricane’s eye”; to look safely and from inside so that he can feel all its faces, qualities, characteristics, and movements; to touch its intoxicating power; to witness its upheavals, its “rapid mood swings”, its accelerations that remind us of rafting, to taste its instability, its latency, its unpredictability, but also vice versa – to feel its ability to inspire joint action; to be a support for the individual; to be a pillar to return to; to give a horizon to set off to; to give a sense of belonging that balances.

These very different dynamics by spirit and temperament come together in the ten minutes of time we have given to Mass, and in which we are provoked to think about how and when we enter the flow of the crowd; how and when we are inside and losing ourselves; how and when we are outside and can’t find ourselves. And we are reminded that by slowing down the pace, the picture crystallizes, the pulse normalizes and the courses become clearer.

The article is translated by Miryana Mezeklieva