Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts: "Summerdance"

Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts:  "Summerdance"
Geoff Gibbs Theatre, WAAPA, Mt Lawley
November 2011

If you want to become a dancer, go to the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA).  "Summerdance" firmly states that WAAPA has arrived at an international dance training level, in both classical and contemporary genres. These young dancers can be very proud indeed – as can their teachers.

The highlight of the program is Serenade, the first work created by Balanchine after his fortuitous arrival in America.  One of the indicators of its masterwork status is the fact that the unknowing audience member might well presume it was created yesterday, and that - to a new viewer - it still has aspects of the unexpected, even after almost eighty years of unimaginable change in dance as an art form.

Forgive my waxing lyrical, but I always find this dance uplifting, and it’s many years since I’ve seen it.  Imagine then, my trepidation in approaching this student production, afraid that a special experience might be compromised by an ever-so-slightly-shabby attempt, if the dancers weren’t quite "up to it".

For the first time in almost twenty years of reviewing, I was nervous about the task.  There was no need.  Stager Eve Lawson has triumphed.

On the first night, there was an occasional ragged line, some feet that needed more articulation, and a minor lack of crispness – but the dynamic speed was there, as were the seductive shapes.  It’s no offence to the other works on this long programme when I say that I intend going again, on the final night, just to see Serenade. 

The next work, Gabrielle Nankivell’s The Unicorn Unhinged, provided maximum contrast, with its back alley, gothic-horror, ravaged chandelier-lit ballroom, and a feral spearheading crowd advancing from an upstage corner.  West Australian Mark Howett - now based alternately in Berlin and London’s West End and visiting WAAPA to mentor lighting design students - deserves particular credit for his lighting of this piece.

In the program notes, Nankivell describes the piece as “an experiment in fantasy with no particular intended reading… Think of it as a dream… an experience felt rather than understood.”  Nankivell goes on to appropriately compliment the students, for embracing the floor, running hard “and drop(ping) their judgement”. This last is a skill so crucial for aspiring performers to learn.

I found this work quite playfully entertaining - but at thirty minutes, too long by half. Twelve barefoot dancers indulge in a sort of movement theatre of the absurd, under massive chandeliers.  Wearing huge hare ears, student Linton Aberle amused us with animalistic facial twitches.  Please can I buy the large cow on wheels, as a visual art piece for my new garden? If those sentences don’t seem to make much sense together, then you have a flavour of the work.

Cambodian/Taiwanese choreographer Xiao-Xiong Zhang set his work, Meteor Shower, to Bach’s "Sonata and Partitas for Solo Violin". Intended to “reflect the clarity, speed and intensity of a mid-summer night’s meteor shower”, witnessed by him “when camping in the Central Australian desert in the mid-80’s”, this dance spoke to me of athletic human activity, and gravitational impact.

Zhang’s stated intent would be effectively focused by a distillation of this sometimes almost gymnastic display.  Zhang’s forte seems to be down-on-the-floor choreography, and he is masterful at it.  I particularly enjoyed a very professionally performed duet by two of WAAPA’s exchange students: Anita (Ching Meng) Lin from Taipei University, and Lieneke Matte from SUNY Purchase. However, at forty-five minutes, the work needs editing.

Natalie Weir’s Jabula (staged by Justin Rutzou) closed the program.  Six bare-chested men, in floor-length wide red culottes, advance in the air, leaping from a centre-parted curtain, upstage. The dark smoky atmosphere, The Power of One soundtrack, and the movement choices combine to create a tribal feel, as if we are witnessing a polished Polynesian community ritual. I’ve never seen a Weir work that I couldn’t appreciate, and the students do justice to this rich red offering.

There’s a lot of "value for money" in this program.  For an audience member, it’s stimulating stuff - too much so for me, with four such-impactful pieces. I would have preferred three works - enough is enough - but the four works show how many well-trained second and third year students WAAPA has to show, and their impressive artistic range.  Bravo WAAPA!

- Susan Whitford