Flaunt - Pulse8 Manly Dance Theatre

Review by Dolce Fisher ARAD

Kay Armstrong, Artistic Director of Pulse8 Manly Dance Theatre has done an exceptional job of gathering talented young dancers on the verge of successful careers and created a strong training ground for them. Pulse8 allows these dancers to experience a professional environment and enjoy the chance to perform and work with renowned established and emerging choreographers. I am sure there are many young dancers across the country who would jump at the chance to work with a company like this.

Flaunt began with Anton's work - Experiment 115 - 3. Anton stated that 'there is entertainment in oddity', and displayed this successfully as many in the audience found humour in his choreography and laughed throughout. Anton used many layers to create the piece - silence, the human voice and a metronome, as well as an original score written by Sasha Budimski. The use of the metronome was by far the most creative part of the show and as a dancer I found it very inspirational as he used something so small to create a big idea. This was the highlight of the evening for me personally.

'The second piece, Interlude, choreographed by Kay Armstrong in collaboration with the dancers, was quite captivating with a quirky receptionist as the centre of attention. She played her role astutely and I was drawn to her character. With the intention to lure in the non-dance audience, Kay explored a clever idea that appealed to all.

Recoil a work by up and coming choreographer Gabby Rose centred around the theme of kinetic energy. I feel that Gabby has a lot of potential as a choreographer, as the way she binds movements together makes her work easy to watch.

It is a shame there is only one male dancer in the company, Dale Polglase. Dale featured more prominently in Recoil and was a pleasure to watch. Dale is developing as a talented dancer and I hope that his role in Pulse8 is an encouragement to other young male dancers. It will be great to see further males join the company in the future.

These first three works displayed common elements, combining the use of the human voice and silence. They blended so well that If I hadn't read the programme I may not have been able to decipher that they where works by individual choreographers. Although displayed excellently, this voice and silence use seems to be the 'in thing' in dance choreography at the moment and I fear that it is becoming too common in popular contemporary dance culture, featuring in many popular works in the last few years. On the flipside this also throws out a challenge for all choreographers to push the boundaries of their creativity and to be incredibly innovative in every work that is developed. It must not become a formula.

Dog Dance by choreographer Vicki Van Hout was inspired by Indigenous myths. In this work she ingeniously blended her love for Aboriginal/Islander dance with contemporary movement. The piece started off strong and stood out as being different to the others, probably due to Vicki's varied cultural history and experiences. Dog Dance displayed a refreshing and engaging new style.

The performance concluded with a piece by Kay Armstrong. Kay created an interesting end to the evening which included much voice work, dance on film and a large finale. The different ways the dancers used a microphone was very clever and I enjoyed this element.

The girls performed a segment where they kneeled over with their heads in buckets holding up their hair. The visual image was a little disturbing as it made me think about girls with eating disorders vomiting and I felt that the one image was seen by the audience for far too long. However, the moment did eventually pass and the dancers started blowing bubbles in the water in their buckets. I realised that this segment tied in with the theme of Manly and its beach culture as dance on film showed the dancers in different areas in Manly. As dance on film has so much potential to communicate, I hope that Kay continues to explore this as the company develops. The finale was a fantastic way to end the show. It was really refreshing to see someone take a curtain call and make it exciting! The only thing that let it down was that most of the dancers were not as strong in their jazz technique as they were in contemporary, however the dancers are developing their diversity, and the majority of the dancers had displayed a high technical level throughout the show. With time and further training the dancers are very capable of mastering both styles.

Two stand out dancers to watch in future are Sydney Smith and Jayne McCann. I am interested to see how many careers will come out of this company. Pulse8 is filling a gap in the Sydney dance scene, providing these dancers with something that is not currently available to them. I hope Kay continues her fantastic work with vigor, holding further events like Flaunt, that engage the audience that does not dance and refreshes the audience that does.

For further information about Pulse8 contact Kay Armstong at kayzel@hotmail.com

banner photo courtesy of www.flickr.com DWinton P1010045ryy