The Art of Making Audiences Squirm (in the Best Way)
Last week, I watched a woman in the front row lean forward in her seat, then back, then forward again—like she couldn't figure out where to land. That's the effect Rachid Ouramdane and Pam Tanowitz have on people.
Their latest works don't ask for your approval. They demand your attention.
Tightrope Walking Without a Net
Ouramdane's Outsider arrived in Geneva with the kind of stillness that makes you hold your breath. The dancers glide across the stage with surgical precision—shoulders squared, gazes fixed, every finger placement deliberate. But here's the thing: that control creates tension, not comfort.
The piece wrestles with belonging. Who stands at the center? Who gets pushed to the margins? Ouramdane doesn't answer these questions. He lets the bodies on stage ask them, over and over, through movements so controlled they practically vibrate with contained energy.
The Stage called it "hypnotic." They weren't wrong.
Shattering Expectations in Covent Garden
Across the channel, Tanowitz took a different approach. Her Neither Drums Nor Trumpets at the Royal Opera House feels like watching someone remix a classical symphony in real time—except the symphony is ballet, and the remixer has zero patience for tradition.
Ballet vocabulary collides with postmodern deconstruction. Pirouettes show up, then get interrupted. Formal lines dissolve into casual walks. The whole thing shouldn't work. It does.
The Financial Times praised its "playful rigor." Tanowitz herself described it as "blurring of boundaries." I'd call it joyful rebellion—the kind that makes you reconsider everything you thought you knew about where one style ends and another begins.
Why We Need the Uncomfortable
Here's what both choreographers understand: audiences don't need more comfort. They get that everywhere—in their algorithms, their playlists, their carefully curated feeds.
Dance at its best offers something else. A moment of genuine surprise. A movement you can't predict. A question you didn't expect to be asked.
Ouramdane and Tanowitz have both embraced the outsider label—not as limitation, but as freedom. They're not trying to fit. They're showing us what happens when you stop trying.
And honestly? We could all use a little more of that energy.
