• The Coffee Drinkers.  Photo: Gregory Lorenzutti.
    The Coffee Drinkers. Photo: Gregory Lorenzutti.
  • Mossoux Bonte performing Zero Zero.  Photo: Gregory Lorenzutti.
    Mossoux Bonte performing Zero Zero. Photo: Gregory Lorenzutti.
  • Eleonore Didier in Solides Lisboa.  Photo: Sarah Walker.
    Eleonore Didier in Solides Lisboa. Photo: Sarah Walker.
  • Linda Luke in Still Point Turning.  Photo: Sarah Walker.
    Linda Luke in Still Point Turning. Photo: Sarah Walker.
  • Team of Life.  Photo: David Harris
    Team of Life. Photo: David Harris
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Melbourne Festival -

Dancehouse: “Dance Territories” -
Dancehouse, Melbourne, 14 and 17 October -

KAGE: Team of Life -
Malthouse, Merlyn Theatre, 16 October -

Under the collective title “Dance Territories”, two programs of works were presented at Dancehouse as part of the Melbourne Festival.

Yumi Umiumare and Tony Yap's Zero Zero is beautiful and involving. Exploring "the liminal spaces between the visible and invisible", the two dancers undertake choreographic journeys that intersect but remain distinct. Set at either end of a linear performance space, they remain separate for much of the work and although they move within a breath of one another at times, they barely touch.

One dancer (Umiumare) combines ritualised domestic acts of face-washing, furious and prolonged tooth-cleaning and listening to a broken and distorted clock-radio signal which all become meditations. The other dancer (Yap) lies in darkness, his nightmare-riven whispers heard as the first dancer moves through her rituals. The second dancer's movements begin slowly and with careful precision but later broaden into hard, tensile braced postures. Sometimes springing from low crouches, he twists and suspends, balancing on knee and forearm.  Music is atmospheric and is performed live.

Both performers have Butoh influences but absorb other spiritual and somatic practices into their making.  Inward gaze had a strong presence in the work as the dancers channelled a controlled vacancy through their eyes.

In stark contrast, Belgian company Mousseaux Bronte´s The Coffee Drinkers is a slick, witty and burlesque-ish work of physical theatre. Two identically clothed and wigged women sit at matching tables facing the audience. Their movements are precisely the mirror of the other. Their ritual is an obsession of pouring and drinking coffee. Dramatisation of the ritual becomes increasingly outlandish, with absurd acts from drinking furiously with a spoon to pouring coffee over themselves. Coffee leaks from their armpits and fills their shoes. They remove suits to reveal slips, and strip down further to unglamorous tights and utilitarian bras. They climb over their tables and stand or crouch on them, finding ever-ingenious ways to engage their passion for coffee.  

A second scene reveals a triplet to these twins. Lying on a bed, she struggles to sit but once upright finds the wherewithal to prepare coffee. The other two stand statue-like on the sidelines. Are they real or imagined? They appear to struggle for the one identity or else are fragments of the same person. This was fresh and fanciful or a strange and sinister meditation on compulsion, depending on your reading, but was a great contrast to Zero Zero.

The second "Dance Territories" program was not nearly as successful. Eléonore Didier's Solides Lisboa comprises two distinct parts. In the first, dressed in skirt and shirt, a solo dancer (Didier) crawls from her seat in the audience and stops, facing the back of the stage. From here she creates pathways, crawling backwards and diagonally, settling into stillness for periods of time.

A second section involves a series of still poses that create visually arresting images. For these, the dancer is naked and a clothed male figure is present. He is a non-spectator who sits motionless with his back to the audience for much of the work. Together they are a kind of human still life. The power of the images is undeniable, however there is an uncomfortable sense of self-objectification to the work.

Still Point Turning by Linda Luke is a "danced poem" reflecting on time.  Its mechanical movement language and the presence of a large pendulum, videos of flowers blooming and dying and various clock images feel rather literal.

Team of Life has power and intensity in its intention and real heart. However this KAGE production does not realise the extent of this power. It does not grip you by the guts. The reality behind the show does. It is based on David Vincent's experiences as a Sudanese refugee in Australia and a former child soldier. Only touching slightly on this story through two short monologues, it focuses instead on relationships forged between young refugees, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal locals. The work uses football codes as metaphor for the networks of support that we have around us. It is the same concept that drives a narrative counselling program, which helps young victims of trauma come to terms with their experiences without forcing them to discuss them explicitly.

Team of Life has some dynamic dance sequences, melding the physical prowess of dancers and young sportspeople. These are exhilarating feats that include 'specky' marks and some supreme athleticism. The conceit of football extends to a 'Footy Record' style publication in which all  ‘players’ are profiled. Overall, though, the shape of the work lacks spikes of interest and thus feels evened-out.  Having said that, Kutcha Edwards' beautiful rich and resonant voice was wonderful and in him we were privileged with a glimpse of something beyond the feel-good surface.

 - SUSAN BENDALL

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