Force Majeure: Double Think -
Brisbane Powerhouse, 14 August -
Produced by Force Majeure, “Double Think” comprised two works, both duets, by choreographer Byron Perry. The first, Googlebox, although presented under the “Double Think” banner, was originally performed as part of Lucy Guerin Inc.’s inaugural “Pieces for Small Places” in 2005. A short work (at around seven minutes), its incorporation here is pertinent as this is the year marking the end of analogue television, and Googlebox is a humorous look at our sometimes all-consuming relationship with ‘the box’.
Kirstie McCracken, as the hapless television addict and Lee Serle, as the embodiment of a television set, were perfectly matched in this neatly constructed comic piece. Serle, who has a tall, angular physicality, looked and moved rather like a preying mantis, dressed in a black tracksuit with his head encased by an old red analogue set. He was the embodiment of dying analogue television.
With staccato, angular movement the much shorter McCracken interacted with Serle as his ‘signal’ seemingly ebbed and flowed, marked by a simultaneous fluctuation of white noise in Luke Smiles’s evocative electronic score. McCracken’s frantic manipulation of the set’s antennae to try and receive the lost signal revived amusing memories of similarly frustrated efforts for this audience member.
Double Think, a work about dualities, explores, according to Perry, the “notion of the ‘illusion of opposition’.” Its title only is borrowed from George Orwell’s 1984, where the term is used to describe the ability to simultaneously believe two diametrically opposed ideas.
The work is ripe with images - from the manipulation of light boxes, which are then switched on and off in time to Smiles’s electronic score, to the construction and deconstruction of the set. Then there’s a series of plain wooden boxes of various sizes that in one section form a head high wall across the back of the performance space, individual boxes then moving forward and back in the wall as if doing their own dance.
In clearly differentiated sections, the movement itself embodies ideas of duality and opposition, with the short and the tall of McCracken and Serle further amplifying this notion.
A highlight saw McCracken and Serle, head and shoulders protruding above one another through the wall of boxes, ‘dance’ their arms against the wall in a skilfully choreographed sequence of interactive ‘play’ that became progressively more manic.
The more lyrical segment, where the dancers take control of the movement, is stimulated by ever more competitive and outrageous calling out of word cues, one to the other, such as “bowling ball”, “liquid paper” and finally “Oprah’s hair”, and is loose, fluid and sometimes wildly flamboyant. Using spoken dialogue to ‘discuss’ the methodology behind this improvisation, this segment then cleverly illustrates the inadequacy of speech, at times, in conveying ideas.
Unfortunately, in this staging the sight lines were not good, as even sitting in the third row anything happening below the knees was obscured by the rows in front. Nevertheless, at just over forty minutes Double Think is a well-conceived, tightly constructed abstract work that, because it allows the creative freedom of the performers to prevail in some sections, is always in a state of flux. The work’s cohesion in this performance therefore, was due in no small part to the skill and experience of McCracken and Serle.
DENISE RICHARDSON