NZ Music Double Bill: Dances with Aldous
Q Theatre, Rangatira, Auckland
04/10/2019 - 05/10/2019
Production Details
NZ Music Double Bill: Dances with Aldous
Sparked by an interest in forging connections between Aotearoa’s dance and music communities, Tempo has invited some of the country’s most inventive young choreographers to respond to the music of iconic NZ singer/songwriter Aldous Harding. Zahra Killeen-Chance, Josie Archer and Kosta Bogoievski will present two dynamic and visually-arresting short works in the double bill, Dances with Aldous.
Working in collaboration with Steven Park (costume designer for Harding’s The Barrel music video), Josie and Kosta’s offering promises to vividly echo Aldous’s world. Their performance will meet Aldous at the nexus of day-to-day mundanities, dark humour, and that eerie feeling you get when you’ve dropped to introspective depths. In duet form, Josie and Kosta will evoke Aldous Harding’s music video aesthetic, and their memories of seeing her perform live.
For Zahra, a triad of female dancers will embody the elemental power of Harding’s artistry. Symbolized by their costumes of white, red and black, together they will connote the light of joy, the blood of life, and the shadow of mystery. The costumes are designed in collaboration with Amanda Smith, Rachelle Moore, and TDL at AUT. Award-winning Australian dancer Ella-Rose Trew (Co3) will join seasoned New Zealand dancer Sarah Knox (Footnote) and emerging ballet star Ariana Hond (Melbourne City Ballet).
Dances with Aldous promises to summon the haunting and momentous powers of this extraordinary musician. An important occasion for music lovers and fans of dance alike, this double bill show will be theatre like we haven’t quite seen it before.
NZ Music Double Bill: Dances with Aldous is presented with permission and support from Aldous Harding’s management team. Many thanks to Martin at Associated London Management. Thanks also to Colleen Davis at APRA.
PLEASE NOTE: Performance contains full nudity and use of haze.
Post-show discussion// There will be a post-show discussion following the Saturday 5 October performance facilitated by a leader in the arts sector.
Dance , Contemporary dance ,
60 mins
Wishing for live music
On invitation by Tempo, duet creative artists Kosta Bogoievski and Josie Archer, and the equally inventive Zahra Killeen-Chance present dance works in dialogue with the recently acclaimed 2019 APRA Silver Scroll Award winner, Aldous Harding. I was looking forward to a live presentation of the dialogue and had to make do with a recorded sound scape of voice and music instead. I wonder how much Aldous has seen of the rehearsal process; what creative decisions she makes in the evening’s show? Notwithstanding my reflections about how Tempo’s stated intention to bring dance and musical communities together, the work rapidly settles into Kosta and Josie’s poetic quirkiness. The deconstructed /reconstructed Victoriana of the Steven Park costumes add tangible depth to the collaborative proposal of shared intention. Then, sound and music is playfully looped across the stage as the dancers weave their movement in and beyond Aldous’ ethereal songs. At times we are left to listen, at times the movement is described by smoke. The last vista of Rodin-esque sculptural shapes, sometimes less than sharp though full of bodily beauty and line leaves me wishing that the songstress could really have been present, there and engaged.
Three dancers Ella-Rose Trew, Sarah Knox and Ariana Hond accumulate a more direct expressionism of the songstress’ vocal realm. Zahra’s choreographic choices slip from one view of female perception to another, crafted nicely by the dancers gently wielding hooped costumes in stark colours of red, black and white. The costumes are designed in collaboration with Amanda Smith and Rachelle Moore. Of particular note is Sarah’s soft and subtle gestural play evoking the inside strings of acoustic sound.
Each of these two works show a somewhat unrealised promise for a future, about what was once a real expectation, live music for dancing works. For dancers the cost of recorded sound is a reduction of their ingenious capability to move between sound. In the meantime, we can make do with the art of dance and watch dancers inevitably interpreting music and song.
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