Double Blind

Double Blind, dancer and choreographer Stephanie Lake's inaugural piece for Stephanie Lake Company had its Melbourne season last week on the back of a stupendous Sydney run as part of the Sydney Festival. I'd been following crowd funding efforts and rehearsal updates across Facebook and clicked through to some pretty excited reviews.

The title Double Blind alludes to the now infamous social psychology experiments conducted in the USA in the 1960s that explored obedience in test subjects. Knowing this ahead of the show made me a little apprehensive, anticipating as I was some formal investigation into pain, terror and possibly science lab sadism. It is only heightened by the sight of composer Robin Fox – himself a formidable presence – guru-like at the side of the stage at the ready at the deck.

Apparently stress levels are higher waiting to get on a roller coaster than when you are actually hurtling through the air. Waiting for Double Blind to start I could relate to that piece of research. It opens with Fox's digital sound manipulations – a series of rhythmically varied and unpredictable pulsating bleeps  – that animate the still dancers who move, investigate and respond to the space and one another. The sonic intensity is electric.

I was totally absorbed by the dynamics between the four on stage: Alana Everett, Alisdair Macindoe, Amber Haines and Kyle Page following their every movement in sequences that were richly varied.
The phrases and gestures oscillated between human and machinic registers, shifts that complicated agency in curious ways. I wondered more than once, who or what is in control?  Harriet Oxley's costumes reiterate the institutional flavour: uniform in colour, gendered, with an open slit at the back much like a very refined hospital gown.

If it sounds a bit  menacing it's not. Lake, a keen observer of people, has a wry sense of humour. It is a work that is well modulated, drawing on a range of techniques: calling on the audience to participate at times, deploying props to great effect and, in one hilarious moment, dialogue.

Double Blind's investigation into manipulation and experimentation circles around trust, disclosure, pleasure, curiosity and limits. As the performance progressed I became increasingly aware of the physical demands of the piece, the dancers total exhaustion, plain for all to see. I was most moved by this, on reflection. Lake seems to have something to say about limits, of what happens to us when we are taken there: vulnerability, defencelessness,  surrender. I received it as a disturbing gift.

Gaps

David Rosetzky and I have been working on a feature film for as long as it takes to learn to speak, crawl, walk, sleep, eat and take up the violin. I can say this for certain because the project's inception  coincided roughly with the year of Hazel's conception. Given Hazel is on on her way to school next year, I would have thought it would have progressed further but I've been writing for long enough to know creative writing, as practised by moi, is painstakingly slow work. Occasionally thinking on it is cause for a grade 'A' funk but I've come to view it as a correction. I chew through other kinds of work at a scary clip. I am almost reconciled to the fact that I am unlikely to view my work in a cinema (I should have been born a decade earlier and taking my small, indie films into production back when Steven Soderbergh was fretting about the sexual mores of Andy McDowell and the Kino was the only art house cinema in town). For this reason I took extra pleasure in seeing David's 30 minute video Gaps at ACMI since I played a part in its creation. Officially I am down as co-writer though I am the first to admit that's a stretch given not one of the words uttered by its fabulous cast were familiar to me. Drawn loosely from material developed by us, it is a beautiful, hypnotic exploration of similarity and difference. I found it warm and graceful thanks largely to Stephanie Lake's earthy choreography which shifts speeds and plays with movement in simple, affecting ways and the sound track that is twangy acoustic. That I had a hand in this lovely work is a testament to magical thinking. 

Gaps at ACMI until February 2015 (though the long screening time is no excuse to miss it!)

Dream Lucid

I took myself off to Sydney over the weekend to see Sydney Dance Company's performance, Contemporary Women. I could just read and reread that sentence for pleasure. That's right, I burned some carbon miles in the name of leisure.

I was there specifically to see Stephanie Lake's contribution to the four part event, Dream Lucid but I was more than happy to sit through pieces devised by Emily Amisano, Larissa McGowan and Lisa Wilson. I love the way that dance has the ability to be engaging and undemanding at the same time. I'm pretty sure that's because it's the lack of talkie talkie. I don't know who did the costumes – someone tell me if you know – but they were amazing. Male dancers in shiny tights and baggy velour windcheaters. Female dancers in lace bodysuits and shiny tights. Some in red, others in navy, others still in a shade of pearl. This group came together and separated out into pairs, manipulating one another's bodies at a distance through simple but precise hand gestures to a pulsing soundtrack. I was reminded of 80s interpretive dance, hip hop, and Close Encounters. And it ended with a group hug. A group hug!

I admired those dancers. In this first week of spring I am a long way from toned. A really, really long way away from toned.

Contemporary Women
Sydney Dance Company
28 August – 1 September 2012.

Vale Michael Callaghan

Today Michael Callaghan (4 November 1952 – 19 May 2012) is laid to rest in Exeter, New South Wales. The flier with funeral arrangements read:

Artist – Raconteur – Reader – Collector – Pleasure Seeker – Holder of Hearts.

I'm not sure I've ever read a more affectionate description of a person in such few words.

When I finished writing my book on Redback Graphix Michael asked me which poster I would like for myself. One of the posters I selected was this 1984 poster for Raise The Dole Dance. It hangs in my kitchen, its live-wire figure carving it up on a Japanese dance floor. I never tire of its vibrant colours, the sheer mentalness of it. I'm a long way from down-and-out Wollongong and those desperate economic times. Michael captured the restless spirit of its underclass without peer. Like all great designers he had a freaky sensitivity to atmosphere. In words and pictures, he gave it form.

We'll miss you.

David Rosetzky: How To Feel

David Rosetzky

How to Feel, 2011 video still Courtesy of the artist and Sutton Gallery, Melbourne

After being a negative nancy about Shaun Gladwell's recent exhibition, it's been a blessed relief to get along to David Rosetzky's exhibition How To Feel, coincidentally also a commission, and walk out feeling, well, upbeat. These confessionals – private, innermost thoughts– shared in a group setting incorporate dance choreographed by Stephanie Lake. Rosetzky's work always walks a tightrope between naturalism and artiface. On occasion the effect is a little airless, kind of brittle. But Lake's choroegraphy – not So You Think You Can Dance dance – more like repeated gestures that are earthy and sensual bring interesting qualities to Rosetzky's work. Her choreography, so warm and casual, lightens the tone. As the actors playfully, touch and tumble, kick and slap one another they remind us: hey we're in this together.

Like all of Rosetzky's work it's beautiful. Every detail from choreography to casting is in concert. I expected that. What surprised me was its humour. On Monday night, pretty premenstral myself, I was more than happy to be reminded that people are nut bags. I know I sure felt like one.

David Rosetzky

9 August – 25 September 2011

ACCA

111 Sturt Street

Southbank

VIC 3006