There was a circle in a box in Port Chalmers, Dunedin last night. I think Val Smith drew it.  It sat in chalk dust, somewhat central in an ex-Masonic lodge, The Anteroom.  Smith, as host to ghosts and twentyish other spirits, opened a kind of space. It was a social, experimental, choreographic and courageous space.

The heart-full Smith was a sensory receptor; her presence was at once centre stage and shape shifting in the periphery of our experience. Her body, clad with sleek sophistication and cartoon shoes, carefully settled and unsettled within a specific yet currently un-namable heightened state. Sound artist, de novo, of the low perfect rumble that brushed our ears as we tuned in and out of rustling jackets, giggles and hushed vocal tones, joined the dance with a rocking, pacing, calm excitement. We. All. Joined. In. I became hypersensitive. My urges to put forth what would be virtuosic offerings (in this context) were squashed by a feeling somewhere behind my third rib eye steak.

This choreography demands a participatory spectatorship of self like no other that I have experienced in my years as a performance attendee. It is clearly here and now. Contemporary. It is acutely precise in its design and provokes an active thinking/feeling in and around social constructs of a theatrical nature. I feel like I’m 9 years old and I’ve just watched Cats, the musical. I’m filled with love and excited by the potential of what may become as heart-warming thoughtful artists like Val Smith continue to unsettle and re-shape our current day norms. I know that the other spirits present in and around the circle in the box may have bathed in a different, but equally valid, emotional set. And that’s what gives this work its guts.

So, I dare you to get down, in, and out of a ‘Circle in Box’ and experience what this dance does for you and what it produces as it meets with an entirely new cast of players.   

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