Quiet and Slow and Beautiful and Sad and True

Meg Stuart & Philipp Gehmacher
Maybe Forever
Posted by: Ariel Frager
I don’t know about you but when I have been in the throes of devastating loss, I haven’t been able to get up off the floor. I’m a crying on the bedroom floor person but I know others who take solace crying on the bathroom and even the kitchen floor. I have never, not until last night, witnessed someone else’s grief on the stage floor. In Meg Stuart and Philipp Gehmacher’s heartbreaking Maybe Forever, the opening dance chapter had the two creators slowly moving on the floor, standing upright seemed too difficult and when it happened, they quickly retreated back to the safety of the ground. The darkened space and quiet, deliberate movement reminded me of what I always think about when I think about loss: it is our deepest sorrows that make us who we are. This was a theme that threaded itself through Maybe Forever.
Stuart and Gehmacher invited us into their intimate little world, where when you pulled back the curtain you got to see what was really going on. Desperate and clinging, the dance pieces had the two of them gently bouncing off each other, as we all do when trying too hard to hold onto something too large. The spoken word chapters lent voices to what I could only empathetically feel during the dances, that this grief continued to cause heartbreak, over and over and over again. The live guitar and singing by Niko Harkenscheid added layers and texture to the dance and gave the performance as a whole a sweet, needed break from all the sorrow. Quiet and slow and beautiful and sad and true. Maybe Forever moved me, its subtleties continue to work their way through my consciousness and will maybe help pick me up the next time I am crying on my bedroom floor.