• Photo: Chris Herzfeld, Camlight Productions
    Photo: Chris Herzfeld, Camlight Productions
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Australian Dance Theatre: Objekt

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Australian Dance Theatre: Objekt
AC Arts Main Theatre, Adelaide, 5 October

According to the program notes, Objekt is the first work made under the ambit of the Australian Dance Theatre International Centre for Choreography (ADTICC), a centre devoted to an exploration of the nature of dance in the contemporary world that ADT will formally launched in the near future. Made in collaboration with tanzmainz, the resident contemporary dance company of Staatstheater Mainz, Germany, this “poem about objects” is the third full-length work Garry Stewart has premiered this year. The work had its first outing in Mainz in July: this Adelaide season is a remount on ADT, with three students from the AC Arts Dance program augmenting the cast. Company alumnus and independent choreographer Lina Limosani also makes a welcome comeback, bringing the numbers to twelve.

When the work opens, we are confronted with a large cube bathed in purplish light. Brendan Woithe’s pulsing score creates a sinister atmosphere as gloved hands eventually emerge from one edge of the cube, travelling up and down its edges before finally pushing it open. Out step the dancers in hooded body suits decorated with small triangles, their faces obscured and their movements mechanistic. They stand motionless against the latticed inner walls of the cube as a duet unfolds downstage, consisting mainly of rapid fire upper body movements. An ensemble piece ensues in which the dancers operate as the parts of an intricate machine, all faceless and utterly dehumanized. Ropes are introduced in a playful way; however, this presages a later segment in which the ropes will be used to dominate, control and punish.

As an exploration of how objectification leads to brutalization the work is extremely powerful, moving gradually from the faceless machine-like humanoids of the opening to scenes of violent subjugation of the ‘other’ at the end. A segment in which projections trace over the dancers’ bodies as they stand motionless against the walls of the set, transforming them into industrial designs or motherboards, is a highlight. Another highlight occurs when the dancers, now clad in unisex red leather-look tunics, create shapes with several L-shaped forms in which they enclose and frame each other, creating a series of inventive tableaus. Later several dancers appear with other dancers literally strapped upside down on their backs, allowing for the formation of uncanny insect-like shapes, with multiple arms and legs flailing.

Photo: Chris Herzfeld, Camlight Productions
Photo: Chris Herzfeld, Camlight Productions
Photo: Chris Herzfeld, Camlight Productions
Photo: Chris Herzfeld, Camlight Productions

There are gentler encounters in which tenderness prevails, but the tension is inexorably ratcheted up into a climate of fear, the mood reminiscent of Fritz Laing’s dystopic classic film, Metropolis, in which the human is dominated by the machine. Two dancers are hogtied, beaten and dragged about, and battles are directed by a dictator-like figure from a podium. Woithe’s score—one of the best he has done for ADT—and Mark Pennington’s moody lighting add immeasurably to the effect. The final tableau, in which one of the dancers sits gazing longingly at newly revealed greenery, signals perhaps that despite the brutalization, some gentler impulses survive.

 The ADT dancers are as ever superb, and the three students from AC Arts also acquit themselves well. Objekt is one of the most conceptually sophisticated works Stewart has made in some time, and its ‘after images’ linger in the mind disturbingly.

Maggie Tonkin

All photos by Chris Herzfeld, Camlight Productions

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