Making for an arresting visual, a scissor lift, with its limbs gently extended, stands in repose towards the back of the stage. Against the back cloth, the criss-crossed limbs are highlighted: smooth, vertical access ahead. And yet, it remains, a machine waiting to be operated. Perhaps this is not ‘before’ but rather ‘after’ as the title “Post hoc” indicates. Plucked from the Latin phrase which translates to ‘after this, therefore because of this’ and refers to the idea that that which proceeds is not necessarily linked, the scissor lift dangles as puzzle: will it be operated, has it been operated, is it related, and does it matter if I can answer any of these questions?

Flynn Dakis and Jesper Harrison move like the extended limbs of the stationary scissor lift—without the other, nothing is possible. Dakis is the left leg to Harrison’s right leg, the left arm to Harrison’s right. In costumes designed by Andrew Treloar, they are also a mirror image of each other. With one short sock on their left and right legs respectively, and one long sock on their other legs, they stitch together to make a whole. Their briefs, too, leave one chilly (presumably, I project) left or right cheek exposed. This playful lopsidedness runs counter to their precision. Two Victorian College of the Arts graduates, their movements are finely honed. Together they make and move as a machine. A machine of criss-crossed limbs, but this human machine moves, where the scissor lift does not. Facing each other, with one arm repeatedly swinging and connecting with the small of each other’s back, the contrast is as pronounced as it is mesmeric.

Dakis and Harrison also present as a fatigable machine, one that tires through exertion, as typified by their conjoined, knee-scraping slide across the front of the stage. The hydraulic fluid within their joints has expired, and their limbs have become as heavy as operating cylinders. A spotlight from the scissor lift blinks at them and in doing so illuminates their slow procession. Have they ignored the operational guidelines. 

Elsewhere, Lloyd has Dakis and Harrison explore a causal relationship through movement. Although perhaps the real fallacy of assigning a causal effect to coincidence of timing or placement is my own. Have I been led astray by the scissor lift and seen machine-like movements in Dakis and Harrison? Logical fallacy committed, even when signposted, I have ignored the operation guidelines and linked machine with dancers. As Lloyd describes, when talking about extremes and looking at either end of the scale, clarity emerges “when you look at what is not there.”[1]