A spider-like contraption rises from the floor of Dancebase 3: a box made of white industrial poles with six tall legs angling out onto the floor beyond. Reminiscent of a Louise Bourgeois sculpture if she were to suddenly become enamoured of pipes, the looming object is (depending on their level of skill) a pole artist’s dream or nightmare, with over a dozen poles – some vertical, some horizontal – ripe for the climbing.
For dancer Yvonne Smink, many poles are no problem. Multiple times winner of the Dutch pole dancing championships, she is capable of gravity-defying feats and the choreography in Poles makes perfect use of her prodigious strength. Set against a live soundscape of synths by musician Isaac Poels and the squeak of skin against metal, this isn’t pole as it is usually conceived: slow, deliberate and animalistic, here dance finds articulation through a determined flex of a foot, or the controlled twitch of a muscle before suddenly finding itself mid-air. And although this minimalism begins to wear thin and the need for a narrative throughline begins to mount as the show nears the end, the sheer spectacle of the human body and its capabilities is undeniable.
Poles, Assembly @ Dance Base, until 30 Aug (not 24, 27), 12.45pm