Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) stirs up a nostalgic feeling in many of us twentysomethings, whether for the triumph of winning or simply the rare excitement of being given £5 to spend at the arcade. The game, launched by the Japanese entertainment company Konami in the late 90s, is simple: step in time with the coloured arrows going up, down, left and right. Step out of line and you lose.
Now, the game has inspired Progress, a show amalgamating theatre and dance, and exploring friendship and competition. The duo behind it, Jasmine Price and Nikhil Vyas, met at Durham University. When I drop in on rehearsals, they remember playing DDR for the first time. Vyas recalls going regularly to an arcade in London’s Leicester Square, though he admits: “I spent more time playing the games where you shoot up zombies.” Price recalls jumping up, down, left and right in her local bowling alley in Shrewsbury. I vividly remember playing it in a leisure centre in Cambridge, and long forgotten feelings of humiliation and frustration bubble up as I recall how it felt to be defeated. So I relate to Vyas, who says: “Losing at DDR is a way of looking at what a feeling of failure is in the body. Your body is not able to do what this game is requiring.”
Who wins when the pair of them play each other at DDR? “We play in ‘friendship mode’ so we win and lose together,” Price explains. But when pushed, Price tells me that when they first played at an arcade in Croydon, Vyas won. He admits to having had more practice, saying “it was in my bones” and that “Jasmine is definitely the better player now.” Price responds bashfully: “That’s not true, we’re a team, man!”
They begin to rehearse, and it’s difficult to tell whether they’re acting for me or interacting with me. I suppose that is the point: Progress allows the audience a window into their friendship; to join in with it, even. They recruit me into a dance revolution in which “there will be public takeover of all open spaces like plazas and parks, and everyone gathers at the same time, unplanned, and starts dancing together”. They set up the Nintendo Wii to play DDR – in Vyas’s dream version of the show, they would have the arcade cabinet but this would be expensive. Besides, there is something satisfying about wrangling with outdated technology. I watch them hover the Wii remote over “friendship mode”…
I finally realise why they are so hesitant to play against one another. “Competition is not always about making people more productive,” Vyas explains. “It’s often about making people feel anxious and unhappy.” I consider my own competitive mindset, as I’ve been obsessing over who the winner might be, thereby missing the point. This play is not about winning but about being there for a friend who is losing.
There is a satisfying circularity to this production both about and created by two young people who are trying to make it in theatre. They end the show sweaty from dancing, and exhausted from balancing their MA studies alongside Progress rehearsals. The show has given Price and Vyas a way to express their complex feelings towards the competition they see all around them. “Part of us shying away from competing against our friends has informed this show,’’ says Vyas. Price adds: “It’s nice to see two people supporting one another and to remind ourselves that this is a possibility.”
Progress is about how to fail, how to support friends in failure, and how to find hope. Price tells me that Monopoly brings out her competitive spirt, and Vyas admits he can become rather ruthless in drama games, but neither enjoy competing with their friends in the theatre industry. Vyas opens up about his competitiveness when it comes to promoting his theatre company, Trip Hazards. “At the fringe it gets hard sometimes, constantly measuring yourself against peers.” Price adds sombrely: “Popularity is literally a measure of your success in theatre.”
So why do it? Theatre is a highly competitive industry that is notoriously tough to crack. They smile at each other for a moment, then Price replies as if I’ve asked the most obvious question in the world: “Because we really love it.”
Progress is at Camden People’s theatre, London, until 12 October.
