Sydney Theatre, May 31, 2012
What makes us who we are? Be Your Self explores this question from a philosophical, yet largely scientific angle. Interestingly the production credits include experts such as a neurobiology consultant (Professor Ian Gibbins) alongside the usual suspects of choreography, sound, lighting, costume and set design. This scientific bent is also evident in a series of spoken monologues which provide a loose narrative of ideas as the work progresses. Delivered by actor Annabel Giles, these are heavy with anatomical terminology as if they’ve been cut straight from a medical textbook. The rapid pace of her delivery makes it difficult to take in so much information, but the disorienting speed does give listeners a sense of the human body’s overwhelming complexity.
The set and lighting design have the sterile ambience of a hospital or laboratory, which is emphasised in the beginning by the stark, white uniform quality of the costumes. Initially both male and female dancers wear tunics which seem to neutralise gender differences; however, their costume change in the last section has the opposite effect.
Spanning the width of the stage, a white rectangular structure tilted back on a diagonal makes the stage look deeper overall while moving forwards and backwards throughout the work to enlarge or decrease the dancers’ performing space. It also makes a backdrop for projections and for performers to enter or exit the stage. Seemingly solid, it is actually covered with wide strips of stretchy interwoven fabric through which whole dancers (or selected limbs!) emerge and disappear from view. In the final section this is used to great effect, uncannily like looking at the movement of living cells through a giant microscope.
The cast of nine dancers are listed as an ensemble only so I am unable to discuss individual performances, but overall the dancers conveyed great strength, speed and force. At first they moved as finely tuned athletes to the sounds of creaky old machinery, eliciting humour through the incongruous mix of sight and sound. But when the magnified sounds of heartbeats, blood pumping through veins, laboured breath, gasps and sighs began to dominate the soundscape, movement was exaggerated to enhance the dramatic and emotional intensity. At one point the growing complexity of a foetus’s development is shown in a section where each dancer has a specific movement that they repeat over and over as the speed and rhythm grow faster and stronger. This is gutsy, visceral movement, and the dancers threw themselves around in the sometimes fierce rough and tumble of Garry Stewart’s choreography.
While the notion of dancer as athlete is not new it has rarely been as fully realised as it is in ADT’s distinct movement style.
- GERALDINE HIGGINSON