Triptych review

Anyone who has witnessed a Phillip Adams dance work knows to expect the unexpected. Adams has a knack for creating daring and disruptive pieces that explore themes around sexuality in its rawest form. His newest work Triptych, takes inspiration from Francis Bacon’s 1970 triptych painting, Triptych, in which Bacon used distortion and fragmentation to call attention to his own ideas around love, sex and religion.

In the first of three parts, four dancers (Harrison Hall, Samuel Harnett-Welk, Benjamin Hurley and Oliver Savariego) dressed in simple yet stunning Toni Maticevski designs, spend forty minutes writhing and convulsing on a circular pink carpet to a highly piercing and penetrating score by David Chisholm and Duane Morrison. While one pair appears to have more intimate and vulnerable interactions, the other pair is more aggressive and brutal. The two pairs circle each other, and at times make physical contact with each other, indicating how civility and animal instincts can easily be interchanged, something that Bacon depicted with his art. There are times where you wonder if Adams has choreographed this or if the dancers have completely given themselves over to these urges and being spellbound by the stirring composition. It's a rare experience to watch a performance and feel such intensity permeate throughout the room and be utterly transfixed by what is unfolding.

Getting the inside scoop on being an outsider with Amelia O’Leary's new dance work A Certain Mumble

In 2023, Darebin Arts Speakeasy will celebrate a decade of ground-breaking and award-winning performing arts productions, with Amelia O'Leary's contemporary dance work A Certain Mumble making up part of its 2023 season. O'Leary, a First Nations Gamilaroi dancer and choreographer, will be working with Chinese Malaysian artist Janelle Tan Yung Huey as they explore what it feels like to be an outsider in Australia.

"Being an outsider in Australia means feeling different or like you don't belong," O'Leary says. "We particularly felt like outsiders by encountering indirect and direct acts and attitudes of racism. I also struggled with not belonging in certain institutions and social spaces. I can feel the eeriness and unsettling energies of so-called Australia. In a way, being an outsider helps broadens your perspective and makes you a more interesting and understanding person, but it can make you feel unseen, unheard and misunderstood."

Escalate review (Melb Fringe)

When most people think of juggling, they think of a person throwing balls in the air for as long as they can. But after seeing Throw Catch Collective's Escalate, you not walk away from a great night out, but with an appreciation and understanding of just how exhilarating juggling can be.

Presented as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival, jugglers Byron Hutton, Richard Sullivan and Samuel Kreusler take their balls, clubs and rings, and combine them with music, sound, lighting and choreography to deliver a truly unique circus experience. Instead of throwing items in the air, the trio throw them at each other, around each other and even through each other. The hand and body movements often resemble something you would see in contemporary dance with smatterings of ballet-esque motions. The intricate routines they perform require precision timing from everyone as arms interlock in rapid actions.

Here We Are Amongst You review

I have not felt such sense of warmth and being cared for while watching a show than I have in the world premiere of Rawcus' Here We Are Amongst You. The Rawcus Ensemble began creating this in December 2019, looking into ideas around belonging, togetherness and being present in the moment, which is of particular significance now after the last few years, which for Melbournians has included a few hundred days of lockdown.

After a genuinely caring welcome by one of the cast, they begin walking through the space. Performed in the round, they enter and exit behind the audience, which makes you feel like not only part of the performance, but also part of this group. The smiles on their faces and the joy that they express as they walk and then begin to jog, run and skip with each other and around the audience is incredibly infectious.

Cella review

Cella (Latin for cell) is a minimalist dance piece by Narelle Benjamin and Paul White, who use and contort their bodies in intense solo and paired routines to uncover a history that we rarely consider. Cella allows the two dancers to explore the biology of our body along and the stories that it has to share.

The movements performed by Benjamin and White play to their strengths and often create stunning moments in how the body can be manipulated. While the beginning of the piece goes on longer than is necessary, the unison in which the two move their bodies as they writhe around the floor is impressive, evident of much time and effort made in ensuring they are in tune with the music by Huey Benjamin and with each other.

Top Ten Films at 2018 Melbourne International Film Festival

So two and a half weeks of craziness come to an end yet again! While I still have not been able to crack that elusive 50 films, I did increase my total from last year by 11, to 45 movies. Of those 45, I now present you my Top 10 movies from the 2018 Melbourne International Film Festival.

1. The Night Eats The World

I suspected I would like this film because it involved zombies, but I didn't think I would be so engrossed by it. Its exploration of loneliness and isolation amidst a zombie apocalypse is skilfully accomplished with just the right levels of comedy and horror to prevent you from getting too overwhelmed by the bleakness.

As Sam, Anders Danielsen Lie expresses the boredom and the uncertainty that our protagonist is feeling faultlessly. Without much dialogue (between humans at least), Lie relies on his physicality and expressions to present the impact these events have had on him. Despite the zombies, this is a thoughtful (and philosophical) film about the desire people have in wanting to connect with others.

SELF - Melbourne Fringe Festival review

Performers always appear to have an air of confidence about them. They know how to turn on the charm, how to dress and how to behave and are always surrounded by people who adore them. In a  new musical theatre piece directed by Michael Ralph, SELF looks to explore what happens when the man who seemingly has everything together on the outside is falling apart on the inside.

The show begins before the audience is even aware it has started, with a whispering voice relaying a continuous stream of self-doubting and critical thoughts around success and the types of questions artists constantly ask themselves and get asked. Questions such as 'how long have you been creating for?’ and 'how do I express myself?’ keep repeating as the voice gets louder and louder. The silent and motionless band sit along the back of the stage, shrouded in darkness and add to the tension of the internal nightmare being constructed.

Motion Gallery - Melbourne Fringe Festival review

Transit Dance transforms into a labyrinth of movement with nine intimate performances within Motion Gallery. Conceived and realised by its 2nd year students, this immersive evening of dance showcases the talent that lies in both the school's dance students and its choreographers, as film and dance come together to create striking images and memorable performances. 

The evening begins with One Alternate (choreographed by Gabrielle Loveridge and Sarah McCrorie); an intriguing performance dealing with parallel universes and identical lives. Once this piece has concluded, we are guided to another room for the next piece and while I initially worried that this structure would take away from the immersive aspect of Motion Gallery, it worked quite well, particularly due to the role of the dancers-cum-ushers.

While each piece has its own theme, there is still an overarching idea linking the performances with regards to identity and how we connect to each other - either through human / physical contact or through technology and the digital age we find ourselves in. There are some pieces that don't seem to work in terms of concept and execution or feeling quite similair to something we've already seen, but the ones that do are hugely rewarding and I would love to see these ones explored and expanded upon in the future.

Choreographed by Nicole Muscat and Kady Mansour, Tapua is a humourous look at menstruation and sacredness with the four dancers (Meg Bassett, Kimberley Halberg Annaleise Gaffney and Matillda Hall) displaying some impressive physicality and characterisation. The costumes, set design and music all come together perfectly to build on the environment and themes being explored.

Neon Dreams - Melbourne Fringe Festival review

The 80s are the greatest music decade ever and after seeing Transit Dance's Neon Dreams, I'm fairly certain they agree. Performed by 25 first year students of the school's Performing Arts course, you easily feel like you have time travelled back to the era where music was - for the most part - all about moving your body and  singing as loud as you could.

The soundtrack consists of some iconic 80s gems such as Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want To Have Fun", RUN-DMC's "Tricky" and Robert Palmer's "Simply Irresistible", with all songs providing a great opportunity to display the versatility and skill of each dancer. However the highlight of the evening was Cassidy Richardson and Dimitri Raptis turn in INXS' "Never Tear Us Apart". Their ability to convey a complexity of emotions while performing the sensually aggressive choreography by Yvette Lee had the entire room transfixed.

Similarly, Jessica Cranage in Michael Sembello's "Maniac" was completely taken over by the music and delivered an absolutely commanding performance. The evening also includes a moment of reflection with a touching tribute to 80s music legends lost over the years, including Whitney Houston, David Bowie, Prince and Michael Jackson. 

Lee's choreography is engaging, active and takes into account many of the dancer's own unique abilities. Lee is able to create strong, distinct routines for each act and within that, individual moves for each dancer, resulting in audiences always having something new to see no matter where you are looking on the stage.

Pixel review

Fans of contemporary dance are in for a real treat with Mourad Merzouki's Pixel performing in Melbourne for a very limited season. Mixing dance and interactive video images projected onto a black scrim screen, it is a poetic blending of two worlds - technology and nature - and how they must find a balance to co-exist in harmony.

The light projection by Adrien M / Claire B Company is perfectly executed and visually captivating. There are exciting moments occurring throughout, at one point a wall of digital white pixels come crashing down outward towards the audience and crushing the dancers on the stage. There are scenes where the dancers struggle to pass through the haze of pixels and overpowered but then there are also moments of whimsy and nostalgia as the pixels gently fall through to the floor. It is this mutual respect that is being explored throughout Pixel.

Plunge review - Melbourne Fringe

Having seen Plunge when it was in its early stages of development last year during La Mama's Explorations season (then known as Blending), I was very interested to see how the work had progressed. Being performed at Melbourne Fringe, the work explores the infinite number of outcomes that can result form a single touch. Some are good and some are bad and some are absolutely crushing.

Choreographer and director, Darren Vizer, continues to push his two performers, dancer Joel Fenton and actor Jean Goodwin, to their extremes relentlessly. They share a good chemistry and have clearly worked hard at driving through the more challenging moments of Plunge and allowing the piece to evolve.

Plunge - Melbourne Fringe Festival preview

I first saw Plunge (then called Blending) at La Mama during its 2014 Explorations Season, which supports new works in various stages of development. Almost a year later, this evocative performance piece is now debuting at Melbourne Fringe. Looking at the various possibilities that can develop from a single moment of two people meeting each other, Plunge merges contemporary dance, narrative and text using one actor, Jean Goodwin, and one dancer, Joel Fenton.

"A lot of the show comes from the idea of touch, unwanted or wanted, the desire of some one you want and the acceptance and rejection of advances," explains Darren Vizer, choreographer and director of Plunge. "There is also a power play going on as we look at love, first romance and the not so nice side of being rejected."

Nothing To Lose review

When you go to see a dance show, you expect to see people who are nimble, thin and fit. You don't expect to see fat dancers on stage. However, Force Majeure have done exactly that with their show,  Nothing To Lose, which explores the physical form of larger bodied people.

The show begins with the seven performers - Claire 'Scarlett' Burrows, Julian Crotti, Michael Cutrupi, Lala Gabor, Ally Garrett, Latai Taumoepeau, Anastasia Zaravinos - asleep on stage, like animals in the wild. As the slowly awaken from slumber and realise they are being watched (by us) they begin to challenge us, staring us down as they walk around the stage saying "fuck you" if you don't like this.

Depth of Field review

Whenever I see a performance by Chunky Move, I find myself either absolutely loving it (Complexity of Belonging) or wondering what the hell it is I am watching (It Cannot Be Stopped). Fortunately, their newest show as part of Dance Massive falls firmly in to the former.

Set in the forecourt of the Malthouse Theatre, Artistic Director and choreographer  Anouk van Dijk, brings the city landscape, an urban environment and three extremely talented dancers together in a stunning performance that makes the audience think about the fleeting nature of live and life's moments.