Bosco Theatre, Jan 09
By Lynne Lancaster
Desert Island Dances is a fascinating, inspirational, but a trifle disappointing work. Houston is a fabulous performer with an effortless, fluid grace that unfortunately is only revealed fleetingly. This mesmerizing solo performance is unsure as to whether it is dance, drama or a monologue with movement. It aims to appear totally 'cool', casual and spontaneous, lightly enticing the audience in.
Wendy Houston has worked with DV8 Physical Theatre, Forced Entertainment, Rose English, Garry Stevens, Lumiere and Son and Luddus Dance Company. Her solo works Haunted, Daunted and Flaunted, the 48 Almost Love Lyrics and Desert Island Dances have all toured Europe, the U.S. and Australia. A site-specific piece, Happy Hour, continues to be performed in bars across the U.K.
Houston has also worked extensively here in Australia. Most recently she directed the Fondue Set for their work No Success Like Failure (2008) that premiered at the Sydney Opera House, and she performed Desert Island Dances and Happy Hour at the 2008 Melbourne International Arts Festival.
Desert Island Dances is a show about expectations, about how nothing is really as it appears. Houston toys with this concept using at times bleakly ironic humour. Tanned (and after a short while, hot and sweaty in the sweltering tiny Bosco Theatre) Houston walks onto the stage in very ordinary, virtually rehearsal clothes (grey tank top, faded jeans, yellow and white sand shoes) and draws a large palm tree on a back panel with a piece of chalk. She then picks up a grey boom box and activates recorded ocean sounds. Houston invites us to join her on a lush desert island. She describes the island, but the narrative keeps being altered. It's a relaxed, peaceful island …..well, actually, there's a low-flying plane coming dangerously close - or is there?. There are no clouds in the azure sky (yet), but if there were ….
Instead of Desert Island Dances being favourite music or books, this work analyses favourite phrases of movement - a slide, a stamp, a port de bras. At the end of the work a bottle with a message inside is washed up on the island with a list of 'thank yous' to various people for particular movements. Everyday movements (eg: crossed arms, a turn of the foot, jumping up and down on the spot, a lunge, a shaking arm, crawling) are combined with ballet and modern dance movements in some extraordinary enchainments. At times movements are repeated and/or recycled.
Houston draws a large chalk circle on the floor in one segment of the work - a schoolyard , she informs us. Movement more than words follow in a strong sequence of rolls, quick release and straight bodied falls . I was also reminded of a basketball court. In one section Houston uses a video camera and watches back her performance so far, charting an 'expectation graph' with chalk and various comments on the audience and her performance . When completed, the graph has peaks and troughs like an ECG or stock market share information.
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