Jérôme Bel abstains from sneaking up close, he's no demagogue, as some frightened critics have called him. What's more, The last performance abstains largely from "performing" at all. Well yes, there's dance - an excerpt from Susanne Linke's 1978 Wandlung - but in the course of the evening even those traditional remains gradually disappear. You cannot have and hold dance. Appropriately, if by coincidence, accompanied by Schubert's Death and the Maiden, a few illusions quietly pass away.

It's Bel’s coruscating wit together with the apparent indifference towards abstract "perfection" that makes the pieces a most impertinent comment on ideas of the "universal body", the identity of choreography, the meaning of names and labels. Hamlet is replaceable, men's underwear is no “Contradiction” in itself, yet is closely connected to metaphysics. "Susanne Linke" appears four-fold, just to prove that steps may be studied but can't really be repeated. Original, copy, real and false identities get muddled once and for all. Everything is ephemeral, especially on stage.

Bel repeats his lesson over and over again. His pieces are in-depth studies of different facets of the conundrum. The most paradoxical realisation: repetition doesn't eternalise (a body, a choreography, a person), but accelerates the process of vanishing, by creating ever new layers, signs pointing to signs, not uncovering something essential "underneath" or "inside". While at the same time conditioning perception and creating (a basis for) recognition.

Names and labels are a favourite starting point. Even though Bel's relation to them is at least ambivalent. The title of his 1994 piece Nom donné par l'auteur suggests it onomatopoetically, toying with the phonetic identity of nom = name, and non, meaning no. Names. In The last performance, Jérôme Bel denies himself. In Jérôme Bel, he puts himself at the centre of the investigation. "Quel corps est moi?" - which body is he, really ? From every angle, the two performers search their naked physical being for a deeper acknowledgement of themselves. A few years later, Bel seems to have partly resigned to the fact that, however many times the author says 'No!', the eye of the beholder will categorise him. And in choosing a category, we are assisted by the labels we cannot but attribute to ourselves. Just take a look at your clothes. Shirtology bears witness to how powerful generic labels are, when dancer Frédéric Seguette peels out of fifty t-shirts with different designs and inscriptions. Or when we see "Madonna" dancing a slow with "Kurt Cobain", completely overlooking the two innocent strangers inside the signifying garments. If anything, the dancers have now become identified with our associations of our reception of the public image of the pop stars. Bear with me, it is confusing.

Confusion comes to a head in Xavier Le Roy, piece commissioned by Bel, choreographed by Le Roy, according to what the latter perceives are significant elements of Bel's choreographic alphabet. Anyone trying to decide who can rightly be called the author of this project, risks getting into the muddy waters of copyright laws.

Author ? Original ? Copy ? Celebrity ? Who do we applaud now ? And who do we pay ?

Fortunately Bel introduces to us: the audience. The spectator as the author of her/his perception, hence an integral part in the writing of any (body) image, choreography, and any first till last performance. (Jérôme Bel goes this far - as far as reimbursing ticket money).

In The last performance, Jérôme Bel gradually reduces a choreography to a moving black curtain, then to only music. The steps, supposedly, are repeated in our memory - we are the performers of a dance that exists only in our heads. And we (can) learn about how fragile dance is, and how subjective our perception of it.

The last performance ? Thank God, Bel broke his promise. On the occasion of the seasonal start at Schauspielhaus Hamburg, he most convincingly proclaimed : The show must go on. Those of you, who wonder how he can continue after the last radical approach, will be relieved to know two things : he started from where he left off, and there was still a lot left yet to be taken out. This time he skinned the art form down to the skeleton. But instead of becoming a frugal brain treat for academics, the great majority of the audience, I reckon, left replete. (…)

Bel is an artist, no teacher. If you care to think along while watching, a few things are bound to dawn on you, though. Bel makes it impossible to take identity and the body at fac(ad)e value, by making them disappear, by masking, or inappropriately masking (cif. The Last Performance), multiple, and ostentatious masking (cf. Shirtology). ‘'Essence'’ is no longer a reference point : the fac(ad)e is the spectacle. As he unveils the "hidden" content, it looks as staged, as when he tries the opposite approach, to veil the apparent. And finally, there's no authenticity without doubt, yet no fake without truth. Bel's pieces decapitate our terminology, shatter the fundamental categories (real, identical, false etc.). In doing so, he challenges the locus of meaning, and its relation to the material world. Is theatre really what you see ON STAGE, or is it what YOU SEE on stage ?

Negative criticism, usually on the basis of a clearly outlined picture of good, aesthetic, and meaningful art as opposed to the repeated impertinence of a dilettante misses the point completely. For not only is there seldom such a perfect piece of dramaturgy (resting on the choice and order of the music, and the literal translation of the score into the rhythm of action). Moreover, The show must go on is anything but an intellectual flounder. Bel uses his media (dance or movement, music, dramaturgy, lighting) not just as teasers, nor in a purely aesthetic, but humorously reflective way. He is not using theatrical devices to express his ideas, but staging and showing the process of theatre. The Show is about how a choreographer uses signs to stir up emotions, evoke associations and create meaning as a dialogue with the imagination of the audience. Only instead of doing so covertly, through a plot, costumes, real dancers with perfect movement skills, he displays the bare mechanisms, the intertext with no context. The least you can say is the effects were surprising. Being ahead of the mainstream, though, isn't any guarantee your public will love you. Jérôme Bel has learned to cope with disapproval or cultural pessimism as with the eulogies. Here’s one: Bel's work is genuine, if ephemeral, it is exciting, smart, and great, great fun.