QUT Festival Theatre
September
The QUT Festival Theatre was constructed for last year’s Brisbane Festival as an amphitheatre styled performance space, abutting the front wall of the Brisbane Powerhouse. Open to the elements, the theatre has a definite “rock concert” ambience with the steel scaffolding that supports the production rigging framing a vast expansive wall of industrial brickwork.
Raw Dance’s Bang! Crash! Tap!, one of the featured shows last year, was a tight, entertaining work; therefore, the group’s collaboration for this year’s festival with Sydney’s Legs on the Wall, in the same space, promised much. Beautiful Noise was conceived and created by Anton, director for Legs on the Wall, and Raw Dance Company’s creative director Andrew Fee.
The opening moments certainly live up to expectations. The Raw tappers each furiously beat out the rhythm on white plinths, as behind them four aerialists abseil down the wall accompanied by a very loud soundscape in sync with brilliant black and white projections of pulsating, whirling geometric shapes.
With a movement vocabulary that crosses tap, hip-hop and contemporary dance, a series of short “scenes” unfolds, physically shaped and contained by the rearrangement of the various white plinths around the space.
A section where each artist is allowed to do his or her “thing” showcases individual strengths, with Alex Mizzen standing out for her fluid acrobatics on an aerial chair suspended high above the stage. Also engaging is a section where another Legs performer, hooked up between two tight, horizontally stretched cables, performs more grounded but nevertheless skilful tumbling.
The tapping sequences, however, anchor the work. Although sometimes performed too far forward of the curved stage, which prevents clear vision of all four performers, the Raw Dance team led by Fee has an electric energy that translates into some fierce but articulate tapping.
The score incorporates amplified everyday sound, composed by Timothy Constable and Bob Scott. While not to my ears necessarily “beautiful”, it is nevertheless effectively partnered with the spectacular lighting and audiovisual designs of John Rayment and Chris Wilson, all successfully underpinning the action on stage as it segues from furious to fluid.
However, in spite of the spectacular opening sequence and strong individual performances, the work meanders from one section to the next, with no dramatic thread tying the action together to form a cohesive whole. Opportunities to further engage the audience, with a stronger dynamic between the two groups or between individual performers, are also missed, while the finale seems underdeveloped, with little of the visual impact of the work’s opening. The Raw Dance crew, successfully fighting gravity while suspended horizontally in the air, tap dance furiously on the wall, perfectly in sync with one another – no mean feat. Yet the Legs on the Wall artists, seeming not to be a part of the action at all, remain on the stage, out of the spotlight.
– DENISE RICHARDSON