Dance North, Expressions Dance Company, Queensland Ballet: "Dance Energy" -
Playhouse, QPAC, 27 September -
This collaboration between Dancenorth, Expressions Dance Company (EDC) and Queensland Ballet (QB) is, surprisingly, a first. An initiative of Brisbane Festival and its Artistic Director Noel Staunton, it offered a rare opportunity to see dancers from all three Queensland companies on stage together.
Comprising four works by four different choreographers, each tackling the central theme of the human struggle for survival from a different perspective, with around three weeks to pull it all together, the result was more a celebration of dance in Queensland, which has uniquely supported all three companies for the past 27 years, than a single cohesive work of artistic longevity.
Act I, Allegories, choreographed by Raewyn Hill (Dancenorth Artistic Director), uses the Spanish painter Goya’s The Disasters of War series of prints as visual stimulus for a vivid exploration of the theme of social displacement. Dressed in black the Dancenorth dancers, along with five from Queensland Ballet, are in striking counterpoint to the dozens of crisp white shirts strewn across the stage.
The movement, which segues from the fluid and grounded to the airborne and percussive, travels repeatedly across the stage, through and over the shirts, tossing them aside. Old suitcases are arranged and rearranged in towering piles, which collapse, only to be arranged again around the space, successfully evoking images of dislocation.
Gareth Belling’s Scorched Earth is a more abstract evocation, in this case, of the group mentality of destruction. This is the least collaborative of the works as Belling only uses dancers from Queensland Ballet, challenging them however with movement en pointe that pushes the classical boundaries.
The dancers’ extended lines are accentuated by their black unitards, which also throw into relief against the smoking background, beautifully expressive use of the arms and upper body – a Belling trademark.
Peter Sculthorpe’s Kakadu: For Orchestra gives this work a distinctly Australian feel; Sculthorpe’s music is in fact used for all the works, providing a clear musical through-line, which helps tie each piece to the others. Bruce McKinven’s simple set that evolves for each act, of a backdrop of moving panels, also has an Australian flavour with its nod to corrugated iron.
Act III, The Lament, is EDC Artistic Director Natalie Weir’s exploration of separation and loss of loved ones through war. Her skill at manipulating bodies in exquisitely emotive duets, and en masse, using canon to create a sense of a tidal movement of humanity, make this piece connect emotionally.
The EDC dancers, all in 1940s styled dress are joined by four from QB, with Rachael Walsh, as the symbol of hope, in pink. Both Walsh and Daryl Brandwood (EDC) bring a mature artistry to the stage that anchors the work.
Finally all three companies are brought together in London-based choreographer Cameron McMillan’s Hummingbird. Both the classical and the contemporary are celebrated in this piece, which explores ideas of identity, diversity and coexistence.
It is a very fluid work that weaves in shape and pattern, as the twenty-four dancers, all of different physicalities and training backgrounds, group and regroup in different configurations. Dressed differently in casual tops and bottoms, the dancers are a powerful symbol of the universality of dance.
The “Dance Energy” design along with Sculthorpe’s music, are what bind each of these otherwise disparately styled works together. Otherwise, while “Dance Energy” offers an enjoyable journey across choreographic styles, with each work no doubt having life in another context, as a single work it lacks artistic and intellectual cohesion. The uneven collaboration between the three Queensland companies was also a contributing factor.
Nevertheless I hope that the seeds for further collaborative ventures, maybe not on such a scale, have been sown during what was probably conceived as a celebratory ‘one-off’ occasion.
- DENISE RICHARDSON
Photo: Christian Aas
