Luminous Flux: Tasdance -
Riverside Theatres, Parramatta, 6 April -
It’s always a pleasure to see Tasdance in Sydney. This year the company has brought a multifaceted exploration of light with “Luminous Flux”, featuring a remount of the late Tanja Liedtke’s 2004 work Enter Twilight alongside Light Entertainment, a new commission from choreographic maverick Byron Perry.
Enter Twilight explores the limbo between day and night, unravelling uncertain relationship dynamics between the three females and a single male. Sadly, at twenty minutes the concepts are not fully realised or resolved, and, while the choreography is well crafted and performed, it lacks the depth in interaction of which Liedtke was usually master. Duets feature heavily, and again, while they were well performed, the choreographic dynamic is a little flat. An entertaining section comes towards the end, with a driving beat forcing the dancers into a sequence of bouncing and falling, breaking off into floor-based unison duets and returning to the group to bounce mindlessly once more.
The robotic, doll-like gestural movement in Enter Twilight is highly reminiscent of Liedtke’s seminal full-length work Twelfth Floor, which was being created around the same time. Though the sharpness and technical precision of the movement is immediately eye-catching, its harshness also makes it difficult to engage emotionally with the performers. Thus the investigation of relationships between the dancers in Enter Twilight is less compelling than in Liedtke’s full-length works.
Perry’s Light Entertainment is more engaging, a play with the different properties of light and a play on the different meanings of its title. It opens with a voiceover about the relative purity of white, accompanied by a sudden blinding light on the white-clad dancers who move their heads in a hilarious dialogue with the text. The dancers gradually develop their own vocality, setting up a bouncing rhythm as they sway from side to side. This morphs into improvised rhythmic swaying across the space that shifts from vicious fighting to an orgy, through rapturous prayer to sadness and hysteric laughter. It is simply brilliant comic genius, and this refreshing humour throughout the piece is the key to its success.
The second half is dramatically different, focusing more literally on the qualities of light and how it interacts with the moving body. Light dominates, flicking on and off so that the dance takes on filmic qualities of being rewound and started again or skipped through. Later, handheld LEDs draw attention to different body parts or whirl through the darkened space as the dancers perform canons. It is an accessible work performed with joy and precision, certainly ‘light entertainment’ but nonetheless immensely satisfying.
While "Luminous Flux" may not have been the most daring offering, it was well performed by a terrific ensemble of dancers and strongly held together by the theme of light. It proves that Tasdance continues its rigorous commitment to presenting works by important Australian choreographers, executed by exciting young dance artists and rehearsed to exacting standards.
- Emiline Forster