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Dance Massive 2013

2013


 Da Contents H2

dance massive 2013
March 27 2013
dance: installed, immersed, hybridised
keith gallasch: dance massive 2013


quotidian moves, gangnam-style
philipa rothfield: ben speth, wetubelive

dance massive 2013
sounds to dance to, with, against
gail priest: sound design in dance massive 2013


March 26 2013
the life in the work
philipa rothfield: tracie mitchell, dance screen retrospective

youtubing live
varia karipoff: ben speth, wetubelive

dance massive 2013
March 24 2013
dance & disorientation
keith gallasch: tim darbyshire, more or less concrete

more or less monstrous
jana perkovic: atlanta eke, monster body


realtime tv: tim darbyshire, more of less concrete, dance massive 2013

March 22 2013
ritual entwining
philipa rothfield: soo yeun you, [gu:t] [work-in-progress]

strange affliction: dance massive & transcendence
keith gallasch: jo lloyd, future perfect

March 21 2013
a not so private hearing
carl nilsson-polias: tim darbyshire, more or less concrete

realtime tv: antony hamilton, black projects 1& 2, dance massive 2013

something ends, something begins
virginia baxter: dance exchange, dance for the time being - southern exposure

dance massive 2013
the perfection of submission
varia karipoff: jo lloyd, future perfect

March 20 2013
inner fury, seductive skill
philipa rothfield: anouk van dijk, chunky move, 247 days

March 20 2013
old tropes & the new disconnect
carl nilsson-polias: lucy guerin inc & belvoir, conversation piece

March 19 2013
now, then, now
keith gallasch: sandra parker, the recording

realtime tv: anouk van dijk, 247 days, chunky move, dance massive 2013

dance massive 2013
March 18 2013
creating an affective community
jana perkovic: matthew day, intermission


fun and the damage done
keith gallasch: larissa mcgowan, skeleton

more than smoke and mirrors
virginia baxter: ashley dyer, life support

realtime tv: lee serle, p.o.v., dance massive 2013

March 17 2013
realtime tv: dalisa pigram, gudirr gudirr, dance massive 2013

the body un-mirrored
jana perkovic: anouk van dijk, chunky move, 247 days

the origins of feeling
philipa rothfield: sandra parker, the recording

March 16 2013
realtime tv: stephanie lake, dual, dance massive 2013

dance massive 2013
March 15 2013
a dance for dark times
virginia baxter: dalisa pigram, gudirr gudirr

brittle bones & internal electricity
carl nilsson-polias: larissa mcgowan, skeleton

in the thick of it
philipa rothfield: lee serle, p.o.v.

March 15 2013
inside the audience
jana perkovic: lee serle, p.o.v

the poetry of pain
keith gallasch: stephanie lake, dual

dance massive 2013
when two become one
varia karipoff: stephanie lake, dual

March 14 2013
blacker than black
keith gallasch: antony hamilton, black projects 1 & 2

life in a puff
carl nilsson-polias: ashley dyer, life support


March 13 2013
dark symmetries
carl nilsson-polias: antony hamilton, black projects 1 & 2

lines of flight
philipa rothfield: dalisa pigram, gudirr gudirr

dance massive 2013
suggestive formalism
jana perkovic: natalie abbott, physical fractals


unsettling the audience
varia karipoff: natalie abbott, physical fractals

February 22 2013
an intense manifestation of dance
philipa rothfield: dance massive 2013, melbourne

dance massive 2013: from the archive
lucy guerin inc, conversation piece; antony hamilton, black project; atlanta eke, this monster body; matthew day, intermission; jo lloyd, future perfect; tim darbyshire, more or less concrete; natalie abbot, physical fractals; ben speth, wetubelive

 

Alisdair Macindoe, Sara Black, Dual Alisdair Macindoe, Sara Black, Dual
photo Ponch Hawkes
TWO VERY DIFFERENT BODIES, QUITE DIFFERENTLY ATTIRED, TWO SOLOS, SEEMINGLY IDENTICAL, AND A THIRD DANCE BRINGING THE TWO PERFORMERS TOGETHER COMPRISE CHOREOGRAPHER STEPHANIE LAKE’S DIALECTICAL DUAL, A RIVETING PHYSICAL AND AURAL EXPLORATION OF AFFINITY AND DIFFERENCE.

The exactness of the movement in Dual evokes loss of control. In consecutive solos, two humans (Alisdair Macindoe, Sara Black)—they could be animals or trees or wind-whipped newspaper—are buffeted by the unseen but intensely audible forces of Robin Fox’s score. These range from subtle to brutal: bird calls, scratched guitar strings, a gentle Kodaly-ish ostinato, a raging, eerily synthetic storm, heart-palpitating thumps, rushes of industrial sound and a sublimely haunting, oscillating, ever escalating organ tone. The bodies register the impact, vibrating furiously, lurching, bouncing, spinning off-kilter, jolted, falling, slumping, spastically discombobulated. These involuntarily spasms are occasionally countered by determined actions (evasive gestures, vocal noise spat across the traverse stage), but at whom or what are they directed?

For all the suggestiveness of the choreography and the sound score, the solos of Dual are fascinatingly abstract, yielding an immersive poetry of reaction and instability witnessed at close quarters. As well, for all their equivalence, the solos are tonally quite different: Alistair Macindoe’s solid frame and everyday clothing, Black’s lean physiognomy and dance rehearsal wear; a more abrasive score for Macindoe, guitar and bird calls for Black (although they share major sonic motifs); and the distinctive essence of each dancer in and beyond the choreography—Macindoe’s firm, rooted gracefulness and sudden lightness, Black’s elegant, arching sinuousness and quivering vibrancy. These differences yield strikingly discrete solos from similar material, preparing us for what comes next.

Alisdair Macindoe, Dual Alisdair Macindoe, Dual
photo Ponch Hawkes
Macindoe performs first, then Black. Now the two stand side by side in a rare moment of stillness before solos mutate into duet, where hitherto unidentified forces become increasingly literal without ever quite losing the strangeness of the initial abstraction. The two bodies draw closer and closer, more often in tension and conflict than in intimacy—the unseen forces in the solos now made visibly human, and inevitably, given the tonalities delineated above and the casting of a male and a female dancer, an inescapable aura of heterosexual co-dependency emerges, replete with a final image of, at last, full embrace and apparent resolution.

Without touching, the dancers exert enormous pressure on each other as if by emotional osmosis, so that when touch comes it is electric. Black trips Macindoe up with repeated kicks from behind; Macindoe holds Black to the floor, pushing down on hand, foot and hip and she slowly attempts to rise, reminding us of the deep waves of movement undulating through her body in the solo.

Compounding this complicating togetherness is Robin Fox’s melding of his scores into one for the duet, a strange aural experience that heightens the difference between acoustic and electronic elements (and between the performers) without undercutting the power of the major motifs which suggest the personae of the dancers suffer the same emotional condition. Same, same but different.

Sara Black, Alisdair Macindoe, Dual Sara Black, Alisdair Macindoe, Dual
photo Ponch Hawkes
Despite the moment in which the pair toss identifiable sounds at each other, Dual is revealed in its third act to be about embodied, unspoken emotional entanglement. Now we look back to the solos that comprise the first two acts and see them for the suffering and bewilderment that they are in a work that is not dance theatre but oscillates finally between the abstract and the literal, making poetry of pain.

Lake’s choreography and the dancers’ execution of it is bracing with its wealth of quickfire detail and powerful recurrent images—evanescent while articulately shaped, adding greatly to Dual’s pervasive sense of lone vulnerability and fragile, raw mutuality. This collaboration between Stephanie Lake and Robin Fox has yielded a memorable, visceral work, at once strange and familiar and brilliantly performed.


Dance Massive, Arts House: choreographer, costume designer Stephanie Lake, performers Alisdair Macindoe, Sara Black, composer, lighting designer Robin Fox, producer Freya Waterson, Insite Arts; Arts House, Meat Market, Melbourne, March 12-16; http://dancemassive.com.au/

© Keith Gallasch; for permission to reproduce apply to [email protected]

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