info I contact
advertising
editorial schedule
acknowledgements
join the realtime email list
become a friend of realtime on facebook
follow realtime on twitter
donate

magazine  archive  features  rt profiler  realtimedance  mediaartarchive
back

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

 

Byron Perry, Stephanie Lake, Alisdair Macindoe, Conversation Piece, Lucy Guerin Inc Byron Perry, Stephanie Lake, Alisdair Macindoe, Conversation Piece, Lucy Guerin Inc
photo Ponch Hawkes
FOUR YEARS AGO, AT DANCE MASSIVE 2009, THE MEAT MARKET IN NORTH MELBOURNE PLAYED HOST TO THE PREMIERE OF LUCY GUERIN’S UNTRAINED. HER LATEST WORK, CONVERSATION PIECE, CAN BE READ AS AN EVOLUTION AND EXTRAPOLATION ON THIS EARLIER WORK.

Untrained placed two professional dancers beside two complete dance novices in an investigation of performativity, purity and, of course, training. Conversation Piece places three professional dancers beside three professional actors in an investigation of performativity, language and modes of communication.

Untrained was restricted to a clinical essence of form, a physical call-and-response, where the authorial voice of Guerin was evident only in the structure (a list of provocations) rather than in the content, which wholly derived from the performers. Conversation Piece operates with a somewhat looser form, where the performers now respond to one another’s provocations, and is leavened with choreographed intermissions that act to reassert Guerin’s voice in proceedings. Guerin also gradually inflects the piece with a unifying tone and a quasi-narrative based around the performers as characters rather than the performers as themselves.

The set for Untrained was simply a grey square marked out by a white line. The set for Conversation Piece is a minimalist suggestion of an anonymous waiting space—a bus terminal, a Centrelink office—with its three sets of four orange chairs echoing those in Shaun Parker’s This Show is About People (2008).

Untrained was an experiment in physical performance unmediated by technology. Conversation Piece is an experiment mediated by iPhones, which do not act as phones, but rather as audio and video recording devices, playback devices and, crucially, as signifiers of the age.

Megan Holloway, Kath Tonkin, Stephanie Lake, Conversation Piece, Lucy Guerin Inc Megan Holloway, Kath Tonkin, Stephanie Lake, Conversation Piece, Lucy Guerin Inc
photo Ponch Hawkes
What is the value of juxtaposition? When one places a trained body beside an untrained body, does it simply reveal that one can pirouette, the other not? When one places an actor beside a dancer, does it simply reveal that one can speak, the other move? When one places one show beside another, does it similarly reveal only the literal points of difference?

In Untrained, the juxtaposition revealed as much about the audience as it did about the men on stage; what did we find engaging, funny, charming, impressive? It deftly walked the line between a celebration of naivety and experience, without falling into mawkishness or snobbery.

In Conversation Piece, the juxtaposition is more complex and more ambitious. Yes, we are at times invited to witness the gladiatorial struggle between body and voice, as though it were a battle of virtuosity where our laughter or applause determine the victor. But we are also asked to consider how both these forms—how communication itself—is affected by the iPhones’ mediations.

Megan Holloway, Byron Perry, Kath Tonkin, Conversation Piece, Lucy Guerin Inc Megan Holloway, Byron Perry, Kath Tonkin, Conversation Piece, Lucy Guerin Inc
photo Ponch Hawkes
The work begins with an eight-minute improvised conversation between the three dancers, which is recorded on iPhones. The three actors enter, plug into an iPhone each and listen back to the conversation. Each actor then relays one of the dancers’ words, but stripped of modulation, gestures or appropriate tone. When all laughs are presented as cackles, all words presented with the same intonation and there is no gestural language available, it becoms a spoken text message. Some commentators have begun diagnosing texting-addicted teenagers and 20-somethings as ‘flatliners’—their lack of engagement with the spoken word turning them into the walking dead of verbal communication. In Conversation Piece, the actors bring them alive.

In other respects, Conversation Piece rehashes some very familiar 20th century tropes. The presentation of people linked together on a superficial level of purpose but without any expressive connections—that is to say, people waiting together at a bus terminal—is at least as old as Jean-Paul Sartre and his conceptions of seriality and alterity. So, if philosophers and artists have warned of increasing human disconnectedness since the inception of radio, what more can be said? Perhaps nothing completely new, but Guerin steadily pushes the tone of Conversation Piece into unexpectedly sinister landscapes.

Stephanie Lake, Alisdair Macindoe, Conversation Piece, Lucy Guerin Inc Stephanie Lake, Alisdair Macindoe, Conversation Piece, Lucy Guerin Inc
photo Ponch Hawkes
At first, we might see a young woman talking irrepressibly in a one-way stream—channelling all three parts of the original recorded conversation. Then, the social one-sidedness might morph into the attempt a young man makes to converse with another man capable only of non-sequiturs. After this, that young man might start to manipulate the other man’s body in an increasingly cruel and unusual manner. Perhaps a woman debases and humiliates another woman in front of everyone. Perhaps a man, uncomfortable in conversation, unsure of himself with others, enacts a slow motion murderous fantasy in a bus terminal. The most important aspect is that all these things happen as monologues.

Conversation Piece is not about the conversation at the beginning of the show. It is about the lack of conversation anywhere else.


See also the review of the first season (with largely different cast) of Conversation Piece at Belvoir in Sydney: www.realtimearts.net/

Dance Massive, Arts House: Lucy Guerin Inc & Belvoir, Conversation Piece, choreographer, director Lucy Guerin, performers Megan Holloway,
Stephanie Lake, Alisdair Macindoe, Byron Perry, Kath Tonkin, Matthew Whittet, set, costume design Robert Cousins, lighting design Damien Cooper, sound designer, composer Robin Fox; Arts House, Meat Market, March 19-24; http://dancemassive.com.au/

© Carl Nilsson-Polias; for permission to reproduce apply to [email protected]

Back to top