LOVE’S FLUTTER SUFFOCATED |
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) CONCEPT, DIRECTION: Raewyn Hill CHOREOGRAPHY: Raewyn Hill and cast at Great Hall, The Arts Centre, Christchurch From 23 Jul 2009 to 26 Jul 2009 [1 hr, no interval] Reviewed by Kerri Fitzgerald, 25 Jul 2009 |
[Christchurch Arts Festival]
Flurries of feathers drift languidly in pools covering the stage to be shaken and stirred intermittently by the four dancers' frenetic movements. The anguish of love, of pain and yearning, is played out for us amidst the white down, beautifully side-lit and accented with red.
Originally created in New Zealand over December 2008 to January '09 [to premiere at the Southern Lakes Festival of Colour - see links to reviews below], this contemporary dance theatre piece has many hallmarks of Hill's style: a dynamic and intense exploration of human relationships, the use of the spoken voice and sound to accompany movement, theatre dance elements, a minimal set, intriguing props, stylish costumes and strikingly physical dancers.
Hill has recently been the Artist in Residence for the School of Dance at The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, and some of the inspiration for Finders Keepers comes from her observations and reflection on the men who take their caged songbirds to the Yuen Po Street Bird Park (Hong Kong) to socialise them. The intimacies and difficulties of relationships and family life are explored when a bird is taken as a pet into the home and hearts of a husband, his wife and their son ... "Would you like to come home with me?"
Amidst the growing drift of suffocating downy feathers floating on the stage floor, the four dancers engage in a series of duets, trios and solos focusing on the power play between people: those who seek to manipulate, to adore, to control and to meld with their loved ones.
The eternal angst of the keeper and the kept is exposed and the mutual dependencies that can evolve are laid bare. The dance explores the compulsion of attraction and then the ensuing rejection, again the attraction, the pull and the retreat: an echoing of an ancient dance.
One riveting solo by Cho Tak Po Son neatly utilises his popping and locking skills and fuses them effectively with contemporary movement to create original bird images emphasizing arm and head movements. This memorable solo is superbly crafted and executed with technical precision and emotive maturity. Another joyful duet by this young man and Jessica Jefferies is particularly memorable with movements evoking the light flutters and innocent flirtations in the tangling mating of birds.
Lyrical and tender duets were a highlight for this reviewer. Much of this perspective of the lighter side of relationships disappears beside the gloom of repetitive stormy and angst-ridden connections. The beauty and vulnerability of each of the characters remains to be more fully realised in this complex mire of human relationships.
Hill's choreographic voice continues to develop and her creative team combines well to present a significant and reflective piece of dance theatre. As the feathers can smother and suffocate, the overall impression is left of the loss of personal freedom that relationships can impose.
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See also reviews by:
Francesca Horsley (New Zealand Listener);
Felicity Molloy
Nigel Zega (Otago Daily Times);