Gasp!ing
Dunedin Railway Station, Dunedin
19/03/2017 - 19/03/2017
Mary Hopewell Theatre, Dunedin
09/03/2017 - 19/03/2017
Production Details
Gasp!ing is a dance workshop series open to all.
Workshops will be facilitated by local and visiting artists. Following the workshops, Gasp! dancers and other interested participants will collate ideas formed during the workshops into a semi-structured dance. This dance will be performed at a free public showing at the end of the festival.
You can participate in the some or all of the workshops. You do not have to commit to the performance to attend the workshops. For updates please like our Gasp! Facebook page.
To register for the workshops please email – gaspdance@gmail.com, PM our Facebook page or text 0274471426. Please leave your name and preferred contact.
Workshop Timetable: 1) Jodie Bate (Dunedin), Thursday 9 March, 6.30pm – 8.30pm 2) Fabricate Collective (Auckland), Saturday 11 March, 10am – 12pm 3) GASP! Inclusive (Dunedin), Sunday 12 March, 10am – 12pm 4) Leah Carrell (Auckland), Wednesday 15 March, 6.30pm – 8.30pm. All workshops will take place at Mary Hopewell Theatre, 145 Union Street East.
The workshops will culminate in a performance at the Dunedin Railway Station Foyer: 4.00pm – 6.00pm Presented by GASP! Dance Collective.
Dance ,
60 minutes
A thread of binding and mimicry
Review by Hannah Molloy 20th Mar 2017
Gasp! Dance Collective’s performance of Gasp!ing, performed at the Dunedin Railway Station is a lovely way to round out my Dunedin Fringe Festival experience. Watching improv performed in such a busy public space is fun, not least watching the slightly bemused faces of the tourists wandering through and photographing the beautiful building as they stumble across a moment that can only add to their positive experience of Dunedin.
The performance is a partially structured work based on excerpts and explorations from workshops held over the previous two weeks. The three dancers make use of the floor, each other, crutches, audience members, elastics (the game) and a blindfold to inform their movement around the space. They work around and with each other in a gentle and non-competitive way, supporting each other in some moments, making use of each other in others.
I found a thread of binding and mimicry through the piece, perhaps based in the use of simple instructions read from a notebook (swish, rush forward, bang, swoosh) and of the elastics to wrap and constrain. Crutches offers a connotation of restriction but also support and freedom from bounds, whether self-imposed or imposed by others or by physical limitations.
I left this performance feeling refreshed and positive. I find work by this collective to be gentle and somehow stretching and for me, Gasp!ing was the epitome of that.
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