SOS (OVERDUE!) REVIEW: IOU DANCE 3; PERFORMANCE SPACE; CARRIAGEWORKS; OPENING NIGHT, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12. It must be the season for it. No, not Christmas. Well, ok, yes; that too. I’m referring to new dance moves. First, we had Sydney dance Company’s New Breed. Now, iOU DANCE 3, the awkwardly name showcase of up-and-comers featuring no less than nine short pieces. And, like New Breed, also at Carriageworks (but this time, at the behest of resident company Performance Space), where cavernous spaces lend themselves to bold kinetics. It’s all been brought together by Kristina Chan, whose work is included. Others on the bill are (or were; sorry to say, it was a season of just four evenings) Emily Amisano, Tim Ohl, Gavin Clarke, Adam Synnott, Lisa Griffiths, Craig Bary, Josh Thomson & Tanya Voges. The whole shebang produced by Michelle Silby and lit by Guy Harding. What of the provenance of iOU. Well, it began at the Io (see what they did there?) Myers Theatre, at the UNSW, about four years ago. And it’s become something of an annual phenomenon, among those in the know. I referred to up-and-comers, but the truth is the artists presenting have a depth of experience, having worked with major companies, choreographers and directors, locally and overseas. But they’re up-and-comers in the sense that those dancers are now morphing into choreographers. As you might expect, iOU offers quite the diversity of ideas and styles. About the only common ground is these are works-in-progress. (There’s a lot of that going ’round, these days, for public showing, which begs the question: is anyone actually finishing anything, anymore?) First up was Voges’ And The Pendulum. Essentially, this involved Tanya inscribing arcs and circles, with chalk, on the floor. For mine, it looked like a wrestling match with the clock and, by inference, time itself: it’s fleeting nature and the ravages it leaves in its wake. But disturbing this train of thought somewhat is a rather dry reading (by Damian Asher, with dramatic sound design by James Brown) of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Pit & The Pendulum. I could see the pendulum, more or less, in the hands of the clock, defined by Voges’ restless limbs. But I’m not sure what other material relevance the story has. It’s fine to have it, and cite it, as inspiration, but does it need to be present, front & centre, in the work? I think probably not. Excerpts? Perhaps. Novel as the movement was, it became rather repetitive, as if the statement had been made and repeated, underscored, rather than being advanced into a new or modified statement. There was a certain sense of desperation and ominousness, apropos of the story’s threatening first-person theme: a man is about to be put to death, during the time of the Inquisition. So, yes, he’d be concerned with time and this is where Voges’ gets it right: she is a human clock, counting seconds and clinging to each, trying to hold back an inexorable tide of doom. What she’s latched onto is a profoundly good idea, but more development is clearly, yawningly needed. Yes, there’s the caveat this is a work-in-progress, but that can also be, it seems to me, a convenient excuse for not having the discipline to fully resolve work. Voges’ piece, we’re told ‘passes over narrative’ an ‘sets focus on the shaw of text on the page; the rhythmic regularity of punctuation marks, or balance of dialogue and description’; programme notes speak of ‘patterns, as performance scores, from which to generate movement’. Yet the palpable outcome, especially given recorded recital of the story, seems very focussed on narrative and the rhythms didn’t seem to match up. Amisano’s Between Dog & Wolf had a visceral feel, too. But her take on the human experience stepped inside the animal kingdom more broadly. In this piece, she’s created a dog-eat-dog world that might seem all too familiar: performers using all their sense to acquaint, forming into packs (the safety and, sometimes, complacency) of sheer numbers, with the odd outsider seeking to subvert the status quo. It’s tense and threatening, dark and all-too-real, exposing an underbelly barely covered by the veneer we conceitedly call civilisation, or society. But Amisano’s design is more dynamic; descriptive, without being too literal. Again, there’s still room to move, if you’ll pardon the pun, but it’s an affecting work that exposes her themes reasonably well: transition; transformation (the legend of the werewolf springs to mind and some sort of allusion might befit); above all, the wholesale loss of touch we’ve effected with our roots, which may well lead to our self-destruction. The music of Einaudo, as well as Berlin-based Lucrecia Dalt’s industrial soundscaping, feature enigmatically. Synott & Griffiths Existence appeared on film; in splendid resolution, thanks to Jason Lam. Their partnership in life, as well as dance, has relevance to the piece, inasmuch as it was, apparently, inspired by rocking their baby. Taking this movement into the realm of coupledom makes for something sensual and romantic. Here, their relationship is newborn, or reborn; rediscovered, as they explore their nakedness, physically and emotionally. It’s personal and universal. We step inside their intimacy; momentary space invaders. Of course, putting on film changes things: there’s some indulgence in editing, or effects, but nothing too subversive of the spontaneity of live performance. But is this the venue for it? Is it a kind of cheat? Something to ponder, perhaps. Suffice to say, I found the work immersive. At first viewing, it’s doubtful whether one will catch the more serious side of Ohl & Clarke’s Naked Habit. This, because one’s so busy being surprised and delighted by, for example, a beer-can man (an amusingly manipulated, more-or-less lifesize, puppet). The surprise and delight is compromised by the ideas, as brimmingly original as they are, running a little thin, before it’s all over, but tis nothing some spit and polish can’t resolve. It’s a very divergent approach; one that has broad appeal and which showcases a very talented pair. There’s not compunction or sniffiness about interpolating, for example, a tap-dance routine, either. And, finally, should you care to contemplate it, a man becoming his addiction, as in a VB can, or whatever else may be his poison, is ‘you are what you eat’ taken to a brutally confronting extreme, but doused in the darkest humour. Like Voges, Chan’s choreographic bent casts her Adrift. The stage suddenly becomes a violent (emotional) ocean, or other hostile environment, in which she must struggle to survive. She writhes and thirsts, in agony and, for all we know, under the spell, or curse, of rampant hallucination. There’s a simultaneous sense of buoyancy and sinking; plunging to the depths. She’s on a similar conceptual plane to Amisano, insofar as he concern with humankind’s susceptibility to the natural world, but her expressive style couldn’t be further away (which is as it should be, especially in a ‘group show’ like this). Chan’s pain is palpable, yet poetic: imbued with a very particular sensuousness I seem to recall her brining to stage previously. Without Concept is Bary & Thomson’s disarmingly self-deprecating title. If Stravinsky or Schoenberg had been choreographers, perhaps this what they might’ve devised: a piece stripped back to basics, bare of theatrical conceits and pretentious intellectualism; they’re out of their heads and into their bodies, exploring the physical limits of those vessels and of the medium of dance. They succeed admirably in their aspiration to explore in a purely aesthetic way. Ironically, there’s a sort of inverse intellectualism about it, but it translates beautifully; fluidly and affectingly. It seems to be informed by mutual respect & abiding affection for their craft. In sum, iOU pays its debt to an audience, as well as to choreographic research and practice. There may be room to invest more, but the dividends are many.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 03:37:24 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015