Queensland University of Technology: “Dance 15” -
Gardens Theatre, 3 November -
It is graduation time again and dance institutions across the country are showing friends, family and prospective employers the talent they have been nurturing and developing. The Queensland University of Technology (QUT) graduation season is one always keenly anticipated.
The QUT program is usually a varied assortment, which reflects the training offered - this year 43 sessional lecturers, representing dance styles from ballet to break dance, were listed in the program. However, “Dance 15” predominantly echoed the dancers’ contemporary training with three key works performed by either the second or third year BFA (Dance Performance) students.
Opening the program was the odd work out: Keith Hawley’s Jazz is Not a Dirty Word. Choreographed on the first year students, this is Hawley’s response to critics of jazz as a “serious” dance form, with more than a passing nod to that genius of jazz dance, Bob Fosse.
With the stage open to the wings and black back wall, and the dancers unisexually costumed in black dungarees and white shirts, Hawley, who has a very visual choreographic eye, creates interesting silhouettes and shapes, using back lighting on a scrim dropped between the dancers across centre stage. This monochromatic looking work shows extensive use of the trademark Fosse hands, heads and feet. The dancers performed on the whole with the requisite punch and attack, although sometimes the timing was not Fosse-sharp.
Fields of Play was the first of two works for the graduating students. Grant McLay used his doctoral research deconstructing and reconstructing the physical dynamics of rugby union to inform this work, which has the dancers separated into two “teams” by their blue or green sportswear.
The work comprises several seemingly disconnected sections where, unsurprisingly, although there is some unison, contact work features heavily. Although the underlying premise holds promise, the movement construct does not develop as it might, and therefore failed to show the dancers to their best advantage.
Two short pieces of repertoire began the second half of the program. The first, a short solo from Natalie Weir’s Where the Heart Is, although losing much of its significance when taken out of context, was danced with assurance by third year student, En Rui Foo, who immersed herself in the expressive but challenging piece.
The Alligator Crawl, taken from Graeme Murphy’s Grand, is a witty soft shoe shuffle styled duet, danced with some sass this performance by Jake Harrison and Samuel Marcon (both also third year students). Without Marcon’s costume malfunction early on (his waistcoat came undone), their performance may have also been as crisp as the style demanded.
The final two works were for the second and third year students respectively. Csaba Buday, QUT resident choreographer and contemporary dance lecturer, used his experience living in Beijing to create Pack, which explores ideas of conformity, individualism and freedom of expression.
The second year dancers, clad in flesh coloured body stockings with green leaf decorations modestly covering groin and breasts, begin with very pedestrian movement in unison travelling across the stage. The initial, very repetitive construct expands and becomes more fluid and almost erotic with gyrating movement of hips and ribs. A short solo of rippling arms and hips was sinuously performed (dancer unknown) and the group work was similarly smartly together.
Lucas Jervies’ Chariot, conceived, according to program notes, almost intuitively in the studio, was a dynamic end to the program. Again the stage was open to the wings. The third year dancers wore jeans with bare chests or bras and their hair loose. Described by Jervies as “a danced Hunger Games”, Chariot challenged the dancers, who all rose to the occasion. The extra year of training was evident as with great facility and energy the dancers conquered the raw physicality of the complex, fast movement with clarity and finesse.
– DENISE RICHARDSON
All photo by Dylan Evans. Click on thumbnails for captions. Top photo: Lucas Jervies's Chariot.