Born out of Curiosity programs three works and three differing perspectives. Each relate to Rebound as a company that is a creative and performing vehicle for maturing dancers.

The opening work, ‘MOR’ by Tracy Scott, emerges from a foetus of bodies as a mother figure takes central place. A duet by Andrew Shepard and Emily Napolitano is strong and the resistance, stability, predictability and complexity of partnerships are captured well.

These elements are continued in different groupings of the dancers until the caring and compassion that can also evolve in a relationship becomes dominant. Casual clothes in individual choices of varying blacks allow the personalities to emerge and let us identify with the dancers.

The central work, ‘Stuffed ‘ by Andrew Shephard, takes me back to Alwin Nikolais in New York in his early explorations of physical extensions of body shape and fabric. Here, cleverly, it is duvets and pillowcases that encase with much use of improvised movement and a strong use of visual image.

A bumpy bed and a comforting cocoon give us time to reflect on our own situations – the final image finds a beautiful resting place but the very abrupt ending gives us no chance to indulge – life is like that.   

The final work, ‘Tipping the Balance’ by Fleur de Their, is fun, energised and inventive with a robotic edge and effective use of individual gestural movement motifs. A duet danced by Serena Gallagher and Andrew Shepherd is compelling and their vocabulary is cleverly used throughout the work.

Boards are used as burdens, as balancing tools, as resting places and as a shattering of the balanced air around us. Tyres form platforms of contradiction and instability. The work has an off-balance but totally on-centre sense of clarity and structural control. 

The vocabulary and choreographic feel of the Rebound evening is quite retro and predictable but danced with purpose by a very cohesive and committed company with a passion to communicate their voice.

There are no music credits but there is a constant sense of dub sound which does not help the choreographic voices find dynamic and vocabulary contrast across the programme. Sometimes silence speaks volumes and constant wallpaper noise detracts from what we are thinking about or watching. A personal and possibly an old thought! 

Lovely to see Sean James back on stage and also as the very effective lighting designer for the evening.  Rebound travelled from their home base in Christchurch to share their dance with Wellington. Thank you. 

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Born Out Of Curiosity is a series of three choreographies, performed by Rebound Dance Company. Self-described as “a unique vehicle for maturing dancers”, the company is a good demonstration of exactly why age is irrelevant to the concepts of performance, beauty, strength and creativity.

Mor, choreographed by Tracy Scott, starts with rippling bodies and a pulsation of music and limbs. Marg Flyvbjerg stands like a defiant goddess in the midst of supplicant men and women. The choreography draws thoughts of the immovability of the patriarchy, with its both passive and aggressive adherence to its supremacy, juxtaposed against the persistence and patience of feminism.

The work’s inspiration is drawn from the facets of motherhood and the mod of control and puppet mastery as the balance of power shifts from one dancer to the next hints at some of the realities of being a mother that we perhaps don’t acknowledge so often. The power dynamics of the tussle and cut and thrust are balanced with compromise and collaboration between the bodies on stage. The work and the performers describe individuality but with an easy cohesion.

Stuffed, choreographed by Andrew Shepherd is a curious mix of ‘um, what’s happening here’ to very beautiful spatial tension and flair. The ‘dance’ is less visible as the performers are inside the duvet covers, amorphous masses writhing about, but as the dancers emerge, the complexities become more apparent.

There is a casualness about parts of the movement, with dancers wandering on and off stage but overall there is a grace, a humility and acceptance as well as an exploration of new limitations and realities.

Tipping the Balance, by Fleur de Their, is staccato, synchronised, robotic and remarkable. There is a tightness to the dancers’ movement and a collective will to enable expression of their individuality inside the framework of the choreography. Each dancer has their own motif that tells part of their own story and blends into those of the others.

Each of the works is described in the programme in the context of the changing layers of anxiety and insecurity of inner self consciousness and perception that go with the aging process (and we’re talking late 30s in some cases, which is not exactly ‘old’), and the fact that many of us see ourselves through the lens that society presents us with, as less valid, less whole, less necessary.

Both women and men perform on this stage, and their practice and performance is graceful, strong, thoughtful and complete. Their validity as performers is whole and necessary to the ecosystem of the performing arts sector and society.

I didn’t really mean to wander down this rabbit hole of philosophical musing, simply because I don’t want to detract or distract from my thoughts about the choreography and the performance. However, as I read the programme, I was struck by a sense of justification and apology these creative practitioners were offering the audience for continuing to practice their art. I don’t understand why we do this, but as a woman in her 40s, I do understand the compulsion to do so.

I dream of a day when we don’t have to think of or explain ourselves in the context of age but perhaps rather in a context of experience and what we have to offer and to teach, of what we love to do and what drives us to do it.

The work is beautiful. The performance is engaging. Enough said.

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We live in curious times where boundaries are ever expanding and where limits are continually being tested. It is enlivening to envisage what mature human bodies are capable of and Rebound Dance Company has made this investigation the core of its work. But it is not only the physical boundaries that get pushed in their choreographies, the Rebounders (whose average age is probably about 50), also have wisdom and life experiences that yield tantalising areas to tangle with. Yes, we attend Born out of Curiosity because we want to know how these mature bodies will move and flow, but also we are curious to discover what insights and new ideas will be tussled with by the choreographers. What will be their ‘unique perspectives”?

Mor by Tracey Scott, is a multi-faceted piece where the relationships between the dancers are paramount. It starts peacefully with the dancers lying in foetal like positions with beautiful lighting emphasizing their resting contours. As they slowly awaken, movements become expansive and motifs with sharp edges and reaching lines are established. The dynamics then sharpen as the inevitable tensions develop and the moves become anguished. A dominant wringing of hands motif is used to emphasize moments of tension and anxiety. Force and resistance are played out as dancers collide and melt together in ever-changing patterns. The calm, still embrace becomes a settling motif as dancers cocoon and comfort each other in order to stabilise relationships. The difficulties of life are discarded and trust is rebuilt.

Scott and the Rebound dancers explore notions of reciprocity in relationships in this new piece with honesty and integrity. This is a satisfying dance of giving and receiving; it is like watching a moving meditation.

Another trance-like state is induced for the viewer in the second piece Stuffed by Andrew Shepherd. Those who know Martha Graham’s ‘Lamentations’ will be familiar with the concept of the ‘body in a bag’ where the body can extend its parameters using a large bag. In Stuffed, the dancers are stacked inside large duvets and construct convoluted shapes playfully bulging and stretching against the fabric. Expanding, sharp shapes metamorphose into curves, then billow out again. Mesmerising.

This is a more playful piece delivered with the characteristic wry, pleasure and joy these dancers bring. In Shepherd’s choreography there are many absurd, laughable moments. New, smaller pillowslip-clad figures are ‘birthed’ from the larger figures, slipping into existence much like the replicant being in Blade Runner. One dancer tries repeatedly to get under a duvet which seems to have a life of its own. She is tossed off, again and again, leaving her alone and uncomfortable. The dancers alternatively struggle and frolic with their second skin – their duvet. Notions of the constraints placed by our ageist society are touched on and could be further explored.

The last moment is an enduring one of great beauty: one dancer is held by the ‘duvet’, she is rocked and supported and comforted. Exquisite.

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