Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts: “Verge”
Geoff Gibbs Theatre, 12 November
"Verge" is the end-of-year production for students from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts’ (WAAPA) dance department, many of whom are on the verge of entering the profession. Works by Dutch choreographer Nils Christie, WAAPA's Kim McCarthy, Athens-based Australian dancer Paul Blackman and European-based Australian choreographer Lewis Major gave the students plenty of challenges and opportunities as well as adding to their performing experience.
Opening the program was McCarthy's The Rehearsal, which takes inspiration from artist Degas, composer Tchaikovsky and celebrated ballet master Enrico Cecchetti. Set to Tchaikovsky's music played live by WAAPA pianist Gennaro Di Donna and gifted second year WAAPA music student violinist Runa Murase, the dancers and musicians are on stage as the audience enters, warming up, stretching and chatting, charmingly bringing a Degas painting to life. Ballet master Cecchetti (McCarthy) claps his hands, thumps the floor with his stick, gives some last-minute corrections then oversees re-created excerpts from The Nutcracker, Petipa's Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake, and the cygnets' dance from Graeme Murphy's Swan Lake reproduced by Danielle Hunt. The ladies are mostly in white romantic tutus, with floral headdresses and black velvet chokers and the men, (some artistic license here as Degas painted female dancers) in light-brown tights and white shirts. They "rehearse" ensemble dances, solos, and pas de deux, and combine for a rousing Russian dance/Hungarian czardas finale. With excellent performances all-around, Karen Haruta, Sarah Hawkins, Ellen Williams, William Halton and Lilly King were standouts.
Next was Major's intriguing Sum, created on third year BA students to an electronic soundscape by James Brown of humming, rattling, bells, voices, watery sounds and strains of music. Twenty-two casually clad dancers move slowly backwards across the stage, side-lit in silhouette on a dark smoky stage, eventually turning and continuing slowly forwards in the same direction. One male stops and tries unsuccessfully to engage with others as they pass; some crawl or roll, halting occasionally. A faster percussive beat builds and they begin running frantically, then embrace in the dark to a bittersweet Joni Mitchell love song. Water is poured onto their heads and the stage, and the dancers slide, glide and dive irrepressibly across the wet floor at speed.
After interval, sixteen second year BA students were impressive in Paul Blackman and Christine Gouzelis's thought-provoking Hand of the Foe, set to an electronic soundscape created by Blackman. Against a silvery billowing backcloth, a man emerges and aggressively and cruelly asserts his power over a helpless group in an apparent dystopian incarceration, especially targeting a couple who attempt to escape as alarms sound and lights flash. Black-clad dancers capture the sharp, mechanical movement and despair of the powerless in athletic solo sections with wild leaps and flailing limbs as foreboding images and sculptural shapes emerge from grouped bodies. This work was performed with commitment and intensity, with Cory Derrick, Scott Galbraith and Hannah Phillips prominent.
Concluding the program were 14 sections of Nils Christie and collaborator Annegien Sneep's inspired and profoundly moving Purcell Pieces set to a recording of the stirring music of Henry Purcell and beautifully performed by fifteen third-year students from both classical and contemporary streams. Within softly-lit black surrounds with dancers in black and grey tones, ladies in black swirling skirts, Christie captures the essence and phrasing of this glorious music expertly, as solos, duos and groups reveal contrasting, riveting sections of liquid movement, canons, articulated pauses, complex angular port de bras, rapid turns, and silences. As the lights fade, a magical shower of shimmering petals falls from above. Purcell Pieces was danced with style, precision and impressive maturity by all of the students, with Eliza Gray, Jack Ryan, Mitchell Spadaro, Keshia Olivierre, and Ellen Williams outstanding.
Margaret Mercer
All photos by Jon Green. Click on top photos for captions.