Went to Dunedin last week (April 2-4) to view some dance performances of people who have expressed interest in being in Tempo.
Thought it was a good opportunity to see their work in a reasonably favourable situation, i.e.in a theatre and happened upon some lovely dance friends as well such as Sophia from Company Z!
So I found myself in Dunedin midweek at the Dunedin Fringe Festival.
Stayed as a guest of Guy Williams (thanks Guy) at his amazing house downtown, with easy access to the shows that were on at the teachers college and university theatres.
Saw 2 shows on the wed.
Dancespeak – was a shared programme of various dance people. The concept was dance and words. Alison East’s short dance film subtly featuring Lyne Pringle’s body began the show – lovely imagery of the human form and the beach/sand/rocks juxtaposed – satisfying.
Val Smith ‘s solo was eccentric… there was an intriguing and unique movement phrase in the dance repeated a number of times that apparently she told me later she’s been revising and using for a number of years.
Kilda and Lyne showed an excerpt/ draft moment from their new work which is based on the work of wellknown Dunedin dance personality – Lily Stevens and the concept of celebrating the ‘imagination’. It was delightful and is a great start for a new work by these 2 interesting and clever artists.
Their ‘Fishnet’ work is still being talked about and remembered as a tour de force of humour, wit and great dancing at Tempo 06.
Look forward to this next one.
Kristian Larsen performed an improvised but very substantial solo with a soundtrack of John Cage talking, describing his work,
then Felicity Molloy presented a solo.
She walked in and spoke about a thesis she is writing and with her skirt and glasses, seemed the standard woman then she walked upstage, peeling off her outer clothes as she did so and proceeded to dance.
What a transformation.
She is very supple and strong and has a wonderful childlike quality in her movement which belies the fact that she is quite mature.
Am still chuckling to myself because I so enjoy how dance reveals something about a person which you would not experience in any other way.
Dance (any style or form) as a unique expression is irreplaceable and I still can’t believe that many people in society never express themselves in this way and don’t even know what they are missing because they don’t / will not dance.
Maybe things are changing slowly – as people (men mainly) open up to at least learning a social form like Salsa or Tango – hey lets face it, it’s a great way to flirt and before the Pill it was the only way to safely get physically close to someone!!
Later that night saw ‘3 kiwis and a Spic’
Emerging choreographers exploring ideas – quite confronting, strong ideas from Mariana and Katie but maybe a bit too long.
Kristian was staying at the same house as I was and we ended up discussing how there is an interesting fashion / trend at the moment with choreographers to have music written for them by other dance people (their friends and colleagues).
The benefits of this is that the composer understand the needs of the choreographer well so there is often a clear relationship between the dance and the music, neither dominates, but also there is often a lack of structure in the dance perhaps because the music has been written for the dance and the choreographer hasn’t been clear about the ending?
hmmm.
The sound score is usually really interesting rhythmically or a-rythmically, texturally rather then melodically as in the style of Philip Glass. There is a certain repetition and looping quality, and I really like the sound score produced but the danger is the lack of focus or shape to the work. That’s fine but not all the time please!
I realize as I write this that the dance ‘Moth’ that I ‘m teaching the Unitec 3rd years from my repertoire is based on some Kraftwerk music and has a similar energy / flavour…..but its only 7 minutes long – not 20 or more!
(I actually had the privilege os seeing live Philip Glass and Robert Wilson’s ‘Einstein on the Beach’ at the Melbourne Festival in about 1995. Five hours long – but riveting, unforgettable.)
The next day saw 2 more shows.
‘Here. Now’ – is a show by two of my favourite dancers – Claire Lissaman and Liana Yew. A show consisting of 2 solos about identity and displacement. Both works were very new and worked in many ways but need a bit more time to develop.
Liana’s had interesting video footage about her family and a great costume by Rosie Feltham from Backlit so it seemed more substantial.
Claire’s dance became clearer to me after discussion with her, and her programme notes were clearer after I’d seen the dance. The benefits or not of programme notes?
I felt both need to work on their endings.
Then Requiem by Jan Bolwell’s group ‘Crows Feet’ from Wellington.
There were a number of danceworks in this show and some were stronger than others. Kilda Northcott performed in a piece – she is still such an awesome performer – when she’s onstage you hardly watch anyone else.
Shona Dunlop – who’s now 88 was introducing the ‘Blue Danube’ work, embodying Madam Bodenweiser in her introduction. She has amazing energy for someone her age!
The final work was in memory of Jan’s sister and it was effective in its use of group choreography, with a heroic movement language which suited the theme.
Jan is a good speaker, articulate and confident. It’s great what she’s doing with ‘Crow’s Feet’.
Late Friday night I dashed back to Auckland to teach a contemporary class to young ballet and jazz trained dancers at the Auckland Academy of Dance on Sat afternoon, then over to the Maidment theatre to watch Triple8Funk’s hiphop show ‘Seven Deadly Sins’.
Hiphop is a dance form which has an athletic use of the body as its basis. It often suits the male physique rather than the female – and its very competitive. But the theatricality is quite naïve – though the dancing is gorgeous.
The shaping of a whole show is another skill entirely from choreographing short hiphop pieces and they could do with an ‘outside eye’ or dramaturg’s advice to get it really right I think.
But fab dancers and their musicality were all there for us to enjoy.
