Sara Brodie and Leshan Dance Company: Fault Lines -
Roslyn Packer Theatre, Sydney, 11 June –
First performed as a Melbourne Arts Festival commission in 2012, the 2015 season of Leshan Dance Company’s Fault Lines felt timely in the wake of the recent Nepal earthquake. Leshan Dance Company is based in Sichuan province in China, which was struck by an earthquake in 2008 that claimed the lives of over 70 000 people. The choreographer of the work, Sara Brodie, is from Christchurch, New Zealand, a city hit by the force of a devastating earthquake two years after Sichuan. Combining Western contemporary dance with traditional Chinese dance, Fault Lines is a response to the experience of surviving an earthquake.
It’s a sombre topic, and all elements of this work – choreography, lighting, sound and music, costuming, props – work together beautifully to realise a monochrome mood.
The lighting captures one’s attention first – a shaft of light slices through the darkness of the opening scene; a motif that recurs throughout the work. This gives way to grid like squares of light, through which dancers, on mobile phones, negotiate a path. Sporadically they break into movement that undulates, jerks, flicks and softens. It’s an engaging opening. The Leshan dancers revealed themselves as beautiful movers from the outset; supple, sure and incredibly quiet. There was something endlessly elastic about their performance quality.
Fault Lines is relatively abstract, in the main, although projected facts and figures provide context. Particularly powerful is the list of the world’s cities that are situated on fault lines. As the city names appear one by one, the ensemble sinks to the ground.
Many scenes are noteworthy but one that particularly stands out sees the ensemble gathered about one dancer (not named in the program) who wears a single, high heeled shoe. Against long notes played by string instruments, the ensemble memebrs hold torches; the discs of light float eerily about the soloist. Standing on her shod foot in an impressive extension to second, her elongated supporting leg lends a crazy length to the line. One just one heel she constantly teeters off-balance, as though caught unawares by unstable ground.
While much of the work is relatively abstract, the projections providing context, a scene in which the ensemble crawl through a tunnel of light clearly and effectively depicts the rescue of earthquake vistims. Feet first and chests up, the dancers stutter and jerk along their path.
Another highlight is a duet between a man and a woman, set to deep, mournful strings (perhaps cello). The two dancers almost appear as one, as arms, heads and torsos ripple and weave about each other.
Fault Lines is carefully crafted to keep audience interest with the odd lightly humorous moment here, an aerobatic jump there. At 70 minutes with no interval, however, it feels overlong – exacerbated by the fact that the final scenes are relatively slow moving. Also discordant is the character in traditional dress who appears at the start and finish of the piece. In a work that is otherwise a harmonious blending of contemporary and tradition dance, and of the literal and the abstract, his purpose is unclear.
In the main, however, Fault Lines is a moving and meditative reflection on the impact of earthquakes on communities.
- Nina Levy
Fault Lines plays the Roslyn Packer Theatre, Sydney until 13 June and plays Canberra Theatre Centre 15-16 June.