Gabrielle Nankivell. The Space, Adelaide Festival Centre, August 2011.
The unexpected ending of Gabrielle Nankivell's solo show, I Left my Shoes on Warm Concrete and Stood in the Rain, seems, retrospectively, to make sense of the whole, although in a way that's hard to define. The work contains a lot of poetic text, penned by Nankivell herself, full of metaphors such as 'my sweat is my armor. Ecstasy is my shell.' Heard on voice over during long blackouts, or projected onto screens, the text alludes to a series of unrelated situations in which an individual might find him or herself: fighting a war in the trenches, fending off a wild bear attack, recreating a world from the items in a suitcase. These vignettes, along with Luke Smiles' live soundtrack, shape our understanding of the dance interludes.
In these Nankivell is stunning, shifting from fluid virtuosity to athetoid spasticity in a moment, with a compelling stage presence abetted by her mane of vivid red hair. Although clad throughout in the same blue tank top and pants, she seems to shape shift, transforming herself into a hobbling war wounded, a child hiding under a blanket with a torch, and an ecstatic lover in turn. Whether these are different individuals, or the same self at different points, is unclear. The abruptness of the announcement "just like that, it was over" which signals both the end of the life (or lives) depicted, and the end of the work itself, suggests that the thread linking these stories is survival, or life itself. Just as we in the audience are left trying to make some kind of meaning out of the piece, the individual at the point of death is left with a jumble of experience demanding interpretation. In both cases, it's a task both futile and impossible to resist.
It may be text-heavy at times, but Nankivell's show is absorbing and demonstrates much creative promise.
- MAGGIE TONKIN
'I Left my Shoes on Warm Concrete' runs at Carriageworks, Sydney, from September 7-10.