Playhouse Theatre – Arts Centre Melbourne
Reviewed on Thursday August 29, 2024
For more than a decade writing for Theatre Matters (formerly known as Theatre People), in this time I have had the privilege to review dance in its many shapes and forms. From Ballroom to Broadway, the possibilities to entertain and enthrall audiences never cease.
Some of the more notable physical movement experiences I have critiqued include:
- Anti-Gravity
- Boyz
- Briefs
- Club Vegas – The Spectacle
- Dream Lover
- Empyrean
- Hot Brown Honey
- Le Noir
- Memphis
- Precarious – Circus Oz
- Railed
- Self
- Shaun The Sheep’s Circus Show
- Showcase – The Australian Ballet School)
- Velvet
- Walanbaa – Burn The Floor
- Werk It – Tight Fit
This list goes on.
Founded in 1989, the Bangarra Dance Theatre (BDT) has gone from strength to strength. In thirty-five years of operation, the award-winning group has earned rave reviews from audiences at home and around the globe.
With the organisation’s unique and inclusive focus on traditional and contemporary dance forms, it should be noted that BDT targets and selects its performers from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island backgrounds.
For readers unfamiliar with the company’s history, Firestarter – The Story of Bangarra, is a gripping documentary made in 2020 detailing how BDT began and the many challenges and triumphs it has encountered to date.
Making its critically – acclaimed debut earlier this year at the Sydney Opera House, Horizon has now been brought south (as part of a whirlwind national tour) for viewers based in Melbourne to relish as well.
Told in two distinct parts and separated by a half hour interval, Horizon features a pair of dynamic pieces (Kulka and The Light Inside) with respective running times of thirty and sixty minutes each. Like many of their previous works, Horizon tells First People’s stories, celebrating the connection to water and land, and the significance of place.
This overall agenda takes the structure and format of a conventional ballet and reconfigures it to BDT’s unique brand.
For example, traditionally popular works such as Swan Lake or The Sleeping Beauty present stories marked by individual and group-based routines. BDT takes this packaging further by blending single performances together into an amalgamated whole. The result is breathtaking and drives home the energy and power necessary to showcase this category of dance fusion.
Horizon also takes both an unconventional and refreshing approach to storytelling.
Stripping its performers of any apparent character development and role playing the overall journey is about building the narrative through movement, mood, music, and multimedia.
Drawing on past and present dance trends, there is tremendous attention paid to choreographic detail. Owning the stage space, each segment showcases the performers in solo, duos, trios, quartets, quintets, and as an entire company.
Bringing a rich cultural history to the floor, the dancers listed for Thursday evening’s performance were Lillian Banks, James Boyd, Kiarn Doyle, Emily Flannery, Kallum Goolagong, Amberlilly Gordon, Janaya Lamb, Chantelle Lee Lockhart, Daniel Mateo, Lucy May, Maddison Paluch, Courtney Radford, Bradley Smith, Jye Uren, Kassidy Waters and Donta Whitham.
Working in fluid tandem, it must be said these artists are elite athletes at the highest level. It takes tremendous skill, years of dedication and disciplined rehearsal to make these difficult and complex routines look easy. Whether they are light and airy or stamping the floor and clapping their hands, the dancers use their arms and legs as a physical and percussive extension of the music. Lost in the pounding, tribal beat, one can’t help but submit to the rhythm.
Unlike theatre in the round, much of the action is presented face forward to the audience. Very much an immersive experience, special mention must be made to the creative team responsible for Horizon.
Set design by Elizabeth Gadsby (with associate set design by Shana O’Brien) take this artistic medium to another level.
BDT is clearly aware of spatial framing and in Kulka (Act 1), a tilted mirror is suspended over the dancers for the entirety of the piece. Clever and effective, watching the dancers create shapes from above gives the performance kaleidoscopic intrigue reminiscent of Busby Berkley’s extensive film catalogue. Likewise in The Light Inside (Act 2) a mirrored floor makes the dancers look like they are walking on water. Here, I was reminded of MGM’s spectacular aquatic ballets for Esther Williams.
Theatrical costuming for both acts (by Jennifer Irwin and Clair Parker) uses various earth and deep-sea tones to reinforce and underscore theming. Outfits are either form fitting or free and flowing, to highlight line or continual physical movement.
Karen Norris (Lighting Design), David Bergman (AV Design) and Cameron Smith (Associate AV Design) work in tandem to help unfold Kulka’s and The Light Inside’s respective journeys.
Animated projections such as symbolic markings and cave paintings overlay the dancers in action. One particularly effective sequence involved a trio of male dancers working together as an oversized lizard. It is a moment which needs to be seen in person to understand the collaborative genius involved.
As a flipside to primitive influences brought to life, modern elements such as bright white lines shone onto the floor and mirrors, segmenting and dividing the choreographic space. (In that instance, I was reminded of Tron Legacy’s CGI light cycles which battled each other for supremacy.)
Choreographic duties are shared by Deborah Brown, Moss Te Ururangi Patterson, and Sani Townson. Original sound design and music composition by Brendon Boney, Amy Flannery, and Steve Francis join and underscore the troupe’s exacting body awareness and specificity working the space.
Keeping each act on point, Cat Studley (Production Manager), Joseph Cardona (Company Manager) and Rose Jenkins (Stage Manager) provided excellent support.
Overseen by artistic direction, Frances Rings, BDT highlights how companies take a village to make happen. Everyone involved in should be very proud and this production demonstrates how a cohesive artistic vision may work as one.
Horizon is at the Playhouse (Arts Centre Melbourne) for a limited season until September 7. Catch it while you can.