Talbot Theatre, Thomas Dixon Centre, Brisbane
Reviewed 26 July
Queensland Ballet’s (QB) annual Bespoke season returned this year, strongly reaffirming its mission to explore adventurous contemporary choreography by including for the first time a First Nations offering. In the mix, challenging both dancers and audiences, were therefore three stylistically very different works.
The program opened with gundirgan, wise woman, created by independent artist Katina Olsen (Wakka Wakka Kombumerri), and celebrating the life of Wakka Wakka woman, Aunty Maureen Williams – from her childhood as a domestic servant to her advocacy of education as a way out of poverty for future generations.
Olsen collaborated with composers Sean O’Boyle and Chris Williams (grandson of Aunty Maureen) and musicians from Southern Cross Soloists (SXS) to tell this story. The evocative original score was played live by SXS, upstage right, with Williams on didgeridoo, in a predominantly black box setting.
Low fog creates an atmospheric opening as the 18 QB dancers, barefoot, in long cream pants and tops washed with a sweep of earthy colours, slide seamlessly, in various formations, into and out of the space.
The movement (grounded into the floor, often gestural, and with undulating body movements sometimes led by the head), so unfamiliar to the QB cohort, was nevertheless effectively embraced in this performance. Guest Artist Tara Robertson, in the pivotal role of Aunty Maureen, anchored the work nicely as it progressed. A couple of moments were notable – a "duet" between Aunty Maureen and the didgeridoo, and, to a refrain from the 23rd Psalm, a poignant "in memoriam" moment showing her projected image.
These moments aside, however, the trajectory of the story isn’t that clear. The QB dancers, as a chorus to Robertson, perform mainly in unison, while the black box setting prevents other visual clues that might’ve been possible with lighting and projection had the cyc been fully exposed.
Birds of Paradise, by Ukrainian-Dutch choreographer, Milena Sidorova, was the program’s centrepiece, and for me also its highlight. Sidorova, Young Creative Associate at the Dutch National Ballet, who is mesmerized by the behaviour of Birds of Paradise, draws a parallel between their behaviour and the human quest for love and connection in a work that is both stylish and witty.
It begins in silence, save for the rhythmic slapping of thighs as five women, uniformly in grey dresses with sculpted shoulder plumage, shuffle in tight formation onto the stage, before making a temps levé in arabesque exit, as one, stage left. What follows is a series of vignettes exploring the vagaries of courtship, the men, otherwise clad in black, sporting jackets of different bright colours, and all dancers showing crisp foot and leg work, immaculate turns and high elevation.
Popular tunes underpin the movement. A clever duet (Chiara Gonzalez and Alexander Idaszak) on and around a portable banner promoting the Bird of Paradise, is to the familiar “Dream a Little Dream of Me", while the duet between a dancer (Luca Armstrong) and a mobile streetlamp to the Elvis Presley standard “Love Me Tender” is equally smooth and sassy.
A competitive muscle preening between the men, ending in seemingly never-ending isometric planks, brought much laughter, while a snazzy D'Arcy Brazier nailed the final solo, “Valse de Wasso”.
Jack Lister’s Papillon concluded the program. Created on the Jette Parker Young Artists plus a couple of the Pre-Professional Program dancers, this work is an exploration of the metamorphic process of pupa to papillon, but also as Lister admits is a “vehicle to hold a myriad of emotional states". Lister has collaborated with composer Louis Frere-Harvey to create a work that is therefore difficult to pin down stylistically, moving as it does from the dark to light, and quiet to loud, the movement exploding before fading in its final moments to nothing.
The stage is opened to reveal not only the wings but also the overhead rigging, where in the opening moments dancers can be seen walking. A shiny black surface demarks the performance area, with a triangular back cloth hanging from its base upstage. The dancers, in an assortment of variously coloured, textured culotte-styled pants and tops, are initially seen in different parts of the space performing different movement.
Use of voice hypnotically underpins the score at times – according to Freer-Harvey, as a way of helping the dancers feel connected to the music. The music itself pushes the traditional playing boundaries of classical instruments, creating a cacophony of scratching, squirming and screaming sounds that are surprisingly mesmeric, matched by the angled, sometimes fitful movement.
Lister knows how to move large numbers effectively, the 12 dancers here creating visually engaging groupings, particularly in the work’s final moments as beams of white laser light blaze onto them in turn from the front, back and sides.
It was a satisfying end to a well-balanced, innovative program that is well worth getting along to if you haven’t already.
– DENISE RICHARDSON
'Bespoke' continues until August 4.