The Playhouse
Queensland Performing Arts Centre
March 17
Queensland Ballet’s opening program for 2017 was a trio of contemporary works, which, although having no obvious thematic or stylistic link, together created a potent mix of contemporary and classical dance. It was skilfully delivered.
A palpable sense of oppression pervades the opening moments of Liam Scarlett’s No Man’s Land – a dense and powerful work originally choreographed for the English National Ballet’s 2016 WWI commemorative program “Lest We Forget”. A tiered and jagged set design by Jan Bausar allows vertical and horizontal layering of the movement – the smoky setting juxtaposing battlefields and munitions factory.
in this exquisite work for seven couples, Scarlett deliberates on the thoughts and feelings of soldiers on the battlefield, and their women left behind. His innately musical choreography is a visual expression of Franz Liszt’s deeply romantic Harmonies Poetiques et Religieuse. Laura Hidalgo and Rian Thompson, with Yanela Piñera, Joel Woellner, Mia Heathcote and Victor Estévez, all featured in expressive pas de deux of complex partnering. However, the work belonged to Hidalgo and Thompson in their final enthralling pas de deux of soaring lifts, and intricate, critically timed manoeuvres, whipped to a break-neck speed by the urgency of the music.
Glass Concerto has been a few years in development by its choreographer, Greg Horsman, with this being its third but most definitive realisation. The neoclassical-styled work is for three couples, in stylish black outfits designed by George Wu that peel back to a leotard brevity as the work progresses.
The opening moments have the dancers surge in pairs downstage from the inky blackness of the bare, smoke and haze filled space; a lighting design by Cameron Goerg effectively cutting shafts through the haze. There is a sparse, crystalline clarity to the movement, which ebbs and flows with the distinctive rhythms of the Philip Glass score. Yanela Piñera easily delivers this clarity, and also the fluidity of Horseman’s tricky choreography with its constant directional changes, speed and buoyancy. She impresses more each season. Piñera was faultless, as were her colleagues Alexander Idaszak and the other two couples, Lina Kim, Camilo Ramos, Tamara Hanton and Rian Thompson. In a coda of virtuosic display, the men spun and leapt – bare legs revealing a finely tuned muscularity – while the women’s pique turns were thrilling in their rapidity and oily silkiness.
I last saw the final work, Christopher Bruce’s Ghost Dances, performed by the Australian Dance Theatre (ADT), in 1983. Thirty-four years later, the work still resonates with a freshness and relevance – the mark of a true classic.
Bruce conceived the work as an evocative tribute to the victims of political oppression in South America under Pinochet, but it still has a contemporaneous resonance, as death – in the form of three “ghost dancers” – interrupts the daily lives of ordinary people.
The bewitching rhythms of traditional Latin American songs, and a folky freshness to the stylised and very grounded movement (which, especially from the waist up, tips, turns, dips and weaves), belie the haunting undertones of this touching, intensely human work. D’Arcy Brazier, Joel Woellner and Samuel Packer were mesmerising as the skeleton-like Ghost Dancers, who assert their authority in the opening minutes. To a soundscape of bitter winds, they evoked an eerie portent of doom with slow but rhythmic movement, interrupted by moments of stilled suspension. A group of villagers enter, and singly, or in groups or pairs, show the ordinariness of daily life. All eight of these dancers easily conquered the deceptively simple-looking dipping and weaving rhythms, anchoring the movement firmly into the ground, but still capturing it’s silky fluidity.
“Raw” delivers a powerful start to the year’s season for QB, not only showcasing the polished artistry of its established dancers, but with many of the younger recruits featured in this opening night cast, clearly demonstrating a depth of impressive talent emerging from the lower ranks.
– DENISE RICHARDSON