Last year Dan Daw raised the International Festival’s temperature with a hot, horny and tender look at BDSM and disability. Now he continues exploring themes of the disabled body and society’s relationship to disability in a piece centred around value and social hierarchy (‘exxy’ is Australian slang for ‘expensive, mate’). Though it’s less focussed than The Dan Daw Show, Exxy is jewel-studded with moments of pure, uplifting brilliance.

Daw introduces the idea of succeeding in a world that doesn’t necessarily want you and your body to thrive through the analogy of saltbush, a plant that grows in the Australian outback where he was raised, pushing through concrete and soil to find the light. He is joined by three other disabled artists, and they dance (literally and metaphorically) around ideas of freedom and acceptance, supporting each other and forming an ensemble of individuality. It is beautiful to watch bodies move the way they should, at their own pace, with their own joy and power. 

Daw’s writing is sharp and witty, and he plays games with his co-performers, and with us. In a dance-off controlled by an unseen Big Brother-like figure, we find ourselves rooting for the last man standing (Joe Brown) until we see how much exhaustion it costs him to keep dancing; maintaining a position at the top of the tree is not always desirable or healthy. The best moments are the most playful, such as a competition between Brown and Daw as to who does Cerebral Palsy better (Daw who gets to skip plane queues or Brown about whom people assume he has a ‘sports injury’?) By the end, the group have created an extraordinary magic which brings us all together. We perform for them, and they watch and stare at us in a regal tableau. 

Reviewed at King’s Theatre; picture: Andrew Perry.