Surrender follows a visitor to the P.E.E.P. hotel, GRACE, as they compete with four other couples at the hotel’s ballroom in increasingly bewildering tournaments that play with the limitations and expansiveness of the body. 

 

The film traces phenomenons of 20th century dance marathons––gruelling endurance competitions wherein couples competed for hundreds of hours in almost-non-stop dancing––with the cryptid lore of the rat king and Japanese love hotels.

 

Here the dance floor variously becomes a cell, a nightclub, the belly of a whale, a courtroom, a treadmill and a beating heart–a space for negotiating community, desire and risk, but also to seek out victory, exhaustion and The End.

 

The original installation of Surrender was entered via the gaping jaws of an enormous inflatable rat sculpture. Inside, a sculptural walkway constructed from the knotted pipes of a pneumatic tube system leads to the inner sanctum of a love hotel, with four beds serving as a viewing platform. The back of the installation contains a separate mirror-lined trophy room, where plinths formed from towers of energy drinks glisten and interact with a smoke chemtrail marked out on the ceiling: SURRENDER GRACE. 

 

 

One-half-of-GRACE played by Alex Margo Arden

One-half-of-GRACE played by Ted Rodgers

One-half-of-FAITH played by Emma Belabed

One-half-of-FAITH played by Max Cookward

One-half-of-JENNIFER played by Ayo Babatope 

One-half-of-JENNIFER played by Finn Love 

One-half-of-SAMANTHA played by Wet Mess 

One-half-of-SAMANTHA played by Webster Opiyo 

Maids, P.A.I.N. Nurses, Referees, Bellhops and Chauffeurs played by Theodore Pantelopoulos and Eugenia Shishkina. 

 

Production crew - Baran Caliskan, Sam Keelan, Liv Preston, Agnieszka Szczotka, Jordan Tannahill, Betsie van Zyl, Piet van Zyl, Magda Viljoen, Magnus Westwell and David Wilson. 

Direction, primary camera, edit, sound design, set and costume design by Jenkin Van Zyl 

Red dancewear by Sardanapalus 

Second camera operation by Kevin Brennan

 

Based on writing by Brittany Newell and Jenkin van Zyl.