Ain’t Done Bad – 10 July 2024

Ain’t Done Bad is a transformative dance performance set to the music of Orville Peck that simultaneously showcases the physical strength of the male body and the ephemeral beauty of the human spirit. This juxtaposition of muscles and intense vulnerability made for a deeply moving experience. The dancers were all phenomenally talented, especially Luke Qualls who played the son at the performance that I attended.

It was wonderful to see a queer story that embraced cowboy culture and rural life rather than shying away from it. Orville Peck’s music and Jakob Karr’s artistic conception celebrated the fact that you can be proud of where you’re from and the culture of masculinity that you were raised around and also have sexual and emotional intimacy with men. The deliberate choice of dancers who were muscular and masculine highlighted the existence of this intersectionality and showed that men can dance with each other in sexual ways without anyone being belittled or demeaned. The intensity of the intimacy served to legitimize the idea that no one has to “be the woman” in a gay relationship.

This concept had a beautiful direct parallel in the role of the mother (Megumi Iwama), who used her sexuality to steer her abusive husband (Adrain Lee) away from hurting her gay son. The mother was one of the only women in the show, and her strength as a woman was showcased not only through her efforts to protect her son, but also through choreography that showed the strength of her body. Even though she was physically smaller than the man playing her husband, the power dynamics felt equal in a similar way to the gay couples showcased in this piece. It was one of few dance productions I’ve seen with truly equal feeling relationship dynamics—no massive power imbalances, no female fragility, no dehumanizing masculinity, no femme fatales, no sissies… just people. Just love.

I applaud the strength and unity of this cast, as well as the nuance in the acting. The staging was absolutely brilliant, and I loved the usage of mirrors, particularly towards the end when the mirrors were obscuring some of the intimate moments that seemed to flash before us as a montage of many moments rather than a single, continuous action. The fog was delightful, the lighting truly spectacular. Everything was so in sync. My only real criticism has to do with the sound. I acknowledge that my third row seat probably impacted this, but I had difficulty distinguishing the words, and eventually stopped trying to pay attention to anything that didn’t stand out to me. In an effort to pump up the bass to make it feel like a dance performance, the midrange frequencies became difficult to discern. From my seat, this caused me to lose a lot of the vocal clarity that I come to expect from prerecorded music, and it did take away from my experience.

Overall, if I had to sum up this performance in a single word, it would be “strong.” Every element of the Ain’t Done Bad genuinely wasn’t done badly. The effort to showcase the strength of gay men’s bodies and shatter stereotypes about gay male intimacy was truly phenomenal and quite unique in the New York City theatre scene.  I highly recommend this show to anyone who wants to see something unique and different from the typical NYC theatrical portrayal of gay femininity, and applaud choreographer/director Jakob Karr on creating something truly fabulous.

I did not attend this performance on a press pass.