Adelaide College of the Arts: The Emotional Rationalist

Adelaide College of the Arts: The Emotional Rationalist -
Main Theatre, Adelaide College of the Arts. 6 December -

For this years’ graduation performance, along with their tickets and programs, audience members were given a glossy brochure with photos, biographies and contact details of the six graduates. This is helpful for working out who is who, but it is also an acknowledgement that these graduates will soon be looking for work, which inspires confidence that the institution takes its responsibilities to make them industry-ready seriously.

It is a given that graduation performances are showcases of the students’ employability, and the keyword, as far as employability is concerned, is versatility. Beyond demonstrating a high level of technical ability, graduates must be able to demonstrate their ability to master a range of choreographic styles. Most dance programs therefore offer programs composed of short works by different choreographers that make a variety of stylistic, technical and artistic demands on the dancers. So it is disappointing to find on opening the program that there is only one work on offer, and that is by Peter Sheedy, one of the lecturers and resident choreographer at AC Arts. Now Sheedy has previously made some good works, but graduates who have been taught intensively by him for three years must surely already have a handle on his style. How does this programming give students the opportunity to show their mastery of different styles? Unfortunately, once the performance gets underway, the alarm bells already dimly ringing grow very loud indeed.

The Emotional Rationalist is billed as an exploration of the process of creating movement, and is organised into six sections, one for each graduate, in which he or she ‘explores the use of specific, personality driven action.’  Additionally, we are told that each section is a showcase for the dancer, each of whom has ‘a perceived social imperfection that defines their interaction with others.’  After an opening interlude in which a pyjama-clad man is seen drinking milk from a fridge centre stage, which appears to have nothing to do with the rest of the show, the sections follow each other with very little to link them conceptually. First up is ‘The Diminished Princess’, featuring Aimee Brown, who appears as a narcissistic, bullying young woman. This section features much shouting and swearing, a neon applause sign and puzzlingly, two crawling dancers pulling a miniature cart behind them. The second section, ‘Corporatisation,’ is more coherent, and allows Chris Mifsud to demonstrate that he is a compelling dancer, capable of dynamic jumps, tumbles and turns, as well as sinuous muscularity. ‘Inappropriate’ for Kendal Winton, features much military-style slapstick as a foil for her endless apologies; ‘The Tangent’ for Margot John is a jumble of disparate props and movement of which I can make no sense at all; ‘Torturing Beauty’ for Abbe Peters features some nice partner work, and finally, ‘The Disconnect/Homeless’ gives us a homeless Rita Bush and her illuminated shopping trolley, in which Bush shows us that she is a powerful and expressive performer.

Although the work contains some interesting movements sequences, it feels like it has been made on the hop, with a bit of everything thrown in and fingers crossed. There is far too much juvenile spoken text and clowning about, far too many props used for no apparent artistic reason, far too little done to make the work cohere conceptually, and the whole thing goes on far too long. Furthermore—and this is a concern I’ve voiced before in relation to AC Arts Graduation shows—the choreography appears to be designed so that the students only work within their comfort zones. It gives me no pleasure to write a negative review, but there are times when one’s own integrity as a critic, and the good of the dance community, demand that harsh truths be told. Programming of this nature smacks of self-indulgence and a lack of care and planning for the students’ long-term interests. I left the theatre feeling angry, not just that I’d sat through such a mediocre show, but that the graduates had been ripped off. There is talent in this bunch of students—Chris Mifsud and Rita Bush are real stand-outs—and all of them dance their hearts out, but they have not been given an appropriate vehicle to demonstrate that they really are industry-ready.

- Maggie Tonkin