Theatre Royal Sydney
January 17-23 2013
As part of Sydney Festival

By Lynne Lancaster.

It would be hard to find a more powerfully explosive show celebrating the sheer exuberance and joy of dancing. Hotly anticipated Fabulous Beast, under the excellent direction of Michael Keegan-Dolan, returned to Sydney for Sydney Festival and brought us their tremendous Rian, which means ‘trace’ or ‘mark’ in Irish Gaelic.  

Musically, under the energetic direction of Liam O Maonlai (a founding member of the band Hothouse Flowers), there is everything from amplified harp, piano, piccolo, drums, violin, and assorted pipes to percussion, all tremendously played and full of infectious toe-tapping rhythm. Traditional tunes are melded with original composition and the inventive use of sometimes unusual instrumentation. The show becomes a cross between concert and ceilidh.

Sabine Dargent’s set is a curved green amphitheatre, similar to that found in Irish pubs, with a raised platform on which seats and most of the musical instruments are arranged. The cast sit on the chairs when not performing and watch their colleagues.

Fabulous Beast present ‘Rian’. Photos by Jamie Williams.

The lighting is relatively minimal, but at a couple of points there is very effective use of shadows cast moodily on the backdrop.

The work is plot-less, yet full of the boundless joy of dance and energy of movement. The incredible dancers seem boneless and inexhaustible. From the opening, with the traditional Irish harp, we are reminded of the company’s roots. There is not only emphasis on Celtic/Gaelic themes but a melding of Flamenco, African and Indian influences, plus hints of a ballet base. There is much unison work, and a lot of repeated phrases of movement. Keegan-Dolan seems to favour a feeling of vertical, circular movement. There is also rolling floor work. Apparently there are 108 different sorts of movement used in the show!   

In one dance the men perform reaping-like movements while the women do little shakes of the shoulders combined with isolation movements of the torso. There is one section (possibly Pina Bausch inspired) where to an infectious, yet seemingly soporific uilleann pipes rhythm, the whole cast in a row of chairs, front centre, go into a dreamlike trance in their own worlds and start drifting. The audience love it. The dance is organically incorporated with the music with springy rocking, stamping steps that swing low, yet are simultaneously high-stepping. There are soft jumps with hands like stars. 

O Maonlai has a couple of featured solos as does magnificent Eithne Ni Chathain, who in her show stopping solo is eventually joined by the four female dancers who become twisting, swaying trees with uplifted arms.

There is also a teasing duet for a male and female dancer that becomes a fun zigzagging chase. And the fragile, tender atmosphere when a man and a woman hesitantly touch, at first hand to hand then back to back with outstretched arms.  Melancholy short solos are contrasted with high energy jigs.

There is a marked change from the rather formal, stiff opening with hot suits and enclosed socks and shoes, to the hot, sweaty, barefoot, breathless ending with jackets discarded and shirts undone.

Enthralling stuff and a major highlight of this year’s Festival.

With its roots in Africa and its home in Melbourne, Asanti Dance Theatre is striving to make sense of tribal tradition in a fast paced multi-culture of accelerated change.

By Paul Ransom.

“Most of our traditional dances are very boring,” says Ghanaian born, Melbourne resident choreographer Appiah Annan. “Not just the Ghanaian ones, but across most of Africa,” he adds. “But it’s up to us to change them and make them interesting.”

This might seem like an astonishing admission for someone reared in the multi- coloured cultural melting pot of West Africa, with its vibrant and very musical fusion of tribal tradition, reggae, hip-hop and Western pop and dance. However, for the man behind Sankofa, a new ‘Afro-contemporary’ dance work premiering this month at Melbourne’s Malthouse Theatre, it is the launch pad for an investigation of both tradition and the desire for change.

As Appiah Annan explains, “People say it’s not possible to change those dances but I think the basis is there and if you have the artistic direction to think of things in a different way, it is possible to make those old dances new again.”

Asanti Dance Theatre. Photo by Sebastian Avila

Indeed, the prime motif of Sankofa is precisely that; going back to move forward. In Ghanaian iconography, Sankofa is a bird reaching its neck back towards its tail; the symbolism of which Annan is trying to embody in a work that fuses contemporary discipline, African energy, live music and multi-ethnic performance.

Before settling in Australia in 2007, Annan was already exploring modern forms of dance. “I didn’t really study traditional dancing at first. I was into what we in Africa call ‘freestyle’, which is danced to house music and hip hop. From the freestyle I went back to the traditional dance,” he recalls.

From there he set up Asanti Dance Theatre which, from small beginnings, garnered an international reputation, not only for its creative works but its community outreach. Transplanting the company to Australia, Annan delved deeper in to his love of contemporary, inspired by such luminaries as Pina Bausch, Jiří Kylián and, locally, by Chunky Move founder Gideon Obarzanek.

“Traditional dance is very different to contemporary dance,” Annan states bluntly. “What I’m trying to do is to change some of the traditional moves to become contemporary. In Africa everything sticks to the traditional. We don’t change as much as you do here in the West.”

Working within the self-consciously mutable milieu of the Western contemporary style, Sankofa clearly seeks to examine the role of tradition, not just in dance but in culture generally. To what extent, in a rapid fire world of constant change and faddish ‘innovation’, can solid tradition play a stabilising role? “It does talk about the value of tradition,” Annan confirms, “but also it talks about how we don’t have to stick with those things. We have the opportunity and the capacity to change things, to make things new or to change the way they are going.”

From a purely performance perspective, Annan seeks to evoke this by utilising a lot of “going back and forward” movements. “We’ve also tried to show what Sankofa means to different people from different cultures.” To this end, the show features dancers from Africa, Asia and Australia, as well as a live soundscape of African drumming and modern electronica.

Asanti Dance Theatre. Photo by Sebastian Avila

However, the obviously multicultural nature of the work is not necessarily a cry for tolerance and understanding, nor is it a nod to political niceties. As Appiah Annan insists, “This is not a ‘cultural’ thing, it’s just an artistic work that people from many countries have come together to create.”

Having said that, Annan is clearly able to evaluate both the differences and the similarities between the cultures of Ghana and Australia. The two are quite obviously distinct, not simply in terms of economy, technology and cultural proclivity, but with regards to the way that the arts are practised. “Here, they think about lighting and staging, story and connection, whereas in Africa we don’t think about all these things, we just do it,” he says.

Now that he finds himself ensconced in the world of Western performance, Annan believes that he has fundamentally changed the way he creates work. “Doing this show has been a very amazing journey for me because I have come from that background of just letting things go and just doing it,” he explains. “Coming here to Australia I realise, no, you need to know why, how this is connected with that, and have some kind of story so that audiences, even if they don’t see the story, can see that things are connected.”

Helping him make all the inter-cultural connections are an ensemble of eight dancers and a live ‘band’ under the direction of Melbourne sound artist Dale Gorefinkel. With its West African roots and Australian influenced contemporary aesthetic, Sankofa seeks to do more than simply create a colourful fusion, unifying the often competing impulses of evolution and tradition.

As Appiah Annan prefers to say it, “It’s like, if you have a car and you haven’t washed it for two years, on the first day that you do wash it it will look new. It’s like fixing things, or fitting things that are old into the contemporary world.”

For tickets to see Asanti Dance Theatre present Sankofa at the Malthouse on December 14 and 15 visit www.malthousetheatre.com.au

Top photo: Asanti Dance Theatre by Sebastian Avila

Spring Dance
Sydney Opera House
August 30, 2011

By Elizabeth Ashley

Silence. An empty stage, save for a pile of orange blankets. The audience fidgets in anticipation and uncertainty. Unexpectedly a spectator climbs onto the stage, takes off his clothes and wraps himself in a little orange blanket. Moment by moment eight others appear and go through the same ritual stripping to their varied underwear.

So begins Out of Context – For Pina, a piece of dance theatre conceived and choreographed by Alain Platel for his company Les Ballets C de la B (Les Ballets Contemporains de la Belgique). Platel was in the process of developing the work when he learnt of the death of the German choreographer and dancer Pina Bausch and was so moved that he offered it as a posthumous gift to Pina.

Out of Context commences as an intriguing but slightly uncomfortable process for the audience, with only sparse jungle-murmuring sounds during the initial encounter of these diverse beings. We are reminded of animals meeting, sniffing tentatively, inspecting soles and toes, with horse-like swishing of feet, until the blankets are dropped and relationships ebb and flow.

Throughout the next 90 minutes the audience experiences the full gamut of emotions from discomfort and a sense of embarrassment to sadness then amusement, laughter and a joie de vivre. We are taken from the jungle to the asylum and then to a nightclub before returning to the jungle as night falls. With perfect balance the production is engrossing.

There is a sense of exploration and exposure as these disparate dancers try to establish a new form of communication between each other and the audience. We are somewhere between man and animal and what ensues is a sense of tension between the wide range of uncontrolled movements and the more traditional choreographic components. In the words of Patel, ‘They create a new context out of a normal context.’

Despite Platel saying that Out of Context has no direct link to, nor is inspired by Pina Bausch, the influence is unmistakable – the absence of audience/performer delineation as performers randomly interact and engage directly with the audience; the use of singing and other noises by the dancers including teeth clenching and groaning; faces and bodies exuding anxiety and pathos. The audience is confronted and intrigued by a compelling magnetism. It may not be for the fainthearted but it is extraordinarily rewarding.

The spasmodic and deconstructed moving style reminds one of Wayne McGregor’s works that explore the rawness of the human nervous system. Platel’s previous work with children suffering from motor and multiple disabilities is exhibited via the awkward and un-coordinated movements from dancers who appear malformed. He then combines this with his fascination for the way we can communicate purely through our physical being – ‘no set, no props, except for mikes. It’s quite simple.’

The nightclub scene allows the light relief the audience has been waiting for with the various dancers taking turns at the mike in a karaoke-style singing/dancing session. Trying different dance moves to a few lines from ‘Don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like me’, changes the tone and verges almost on bad taste. The highlight performer here was Kaori Ito singing the Rai pop song A’icha, complete with over-the-top camp moves in his jazzy boxers which have the audience in hysterics especially when he forgets his lines without losing connection with the audience.

Another unexpected and touching moment comes as Dominique Mercy, one of Pina Bausch’s original dancers and current co-director of the Tanztheater Wuppertal, takes the stage. Mercy deftly changes the tone through his imposing presence and dark evening suit as he performs in sign language ‘The man I love,’ giving it a quiet dignity before adding his tentative singing with an almost torch-song poignancy.

With a cast of nine physically and ethnically diverse performers, Platel uses natural diversity to full advantage and provides these superlative dancers with both the technical and emotional range to astound, entertain and move us. And despite the brilliant dancing we are not distracted away from the theatricality, thus making Out of Context – For Pina, a fitting tribute to the pioneer of dance theatre.

The performance ends as the dancers put their clothes back on and return to various seats in the audience. One of them sits next to me as if to say the distance between the everyday and the emotional roller coaster is just a few steps away.

The Emotional Aftershock…

By Elizabeth Ashley.

Wim Wender’s latest documentary Pina is a personal ode to an artist he considers a contemporary visionary.  Those expecting the sunny upbeat style of Wender’s Buena Vista Social Club will find Pina a stark and demanding contrast.

After 20 years as an abstract idea it wasn’t until U2 3D was previewed at the 2007 Cannes film festival that Wenders realised he had finally found the appropriate medium through which to capture the work of Pina Bausch – dancer, choreographer and friend.

Pina’s sudden death on 30 June 2009, just after filming had begun, lends the tone of a requiem to the film even as it attempts to celebrate her work and its artistic impact.

Who is Pina Bausch and what is her legacy to the dance world? Pina the film, is Wender’s attempt to answer this question.

Born in 1940 in Solingen, Germany, Philippine Bausch’s life revolved around the café run by her father where at an impressionable age she witnessed the impact of war on those around her. These confronting memories later come to life as Café Müller, Bausch’s masterpiece.

Her dance training under Kurt Jooss, a leader in the German movement to synthesize classical and modern dance, gave Pina a sense of the freedom to be found in dance whilst building a classical foundation. Importantly during this time was the proximity to opera, music, drama and other arts taught at the school. She earned a study grant to the Julliard School in New York training with Antony Tudor and dancers of the Martha Graham Dance Company before returning to the Tanztheater Wuppertal in 1973 as director and choreographer.

Pina sensed that the world had irretrievably changed and she determined to reinvent the language of dance to release it from traditional confines. Pina Bausch brought dance, theatre and German expressionism together – a blend of raw emotionalism, stark movement, earthly pathos and humour. As Wenders comments ‘it is there to shock you.’

Pina wanted to confront audiences with the teutonic ‘Sturm und Drang’ (storm and stress) of everyday life through her work. The German critic Manual Brug explains her philosophy as “the interpretation of the soul and the battle of the sexes.”

To demonstrate this philosophy in his film, Wenders chose excerpts from four of her 40 works – Café Müller (1978), Rite of Spring (1975), Kontaktof (1978) and Vollmond (2006) within which Pina uncovers a raw humanity fighting for its survival, highlighting the emotionality of the dancing body. As the pieces explore fragile and fraught human relationships we experience moments of unexpected beauty contrasted with our inescapable connection to the earth, symbolised with recurrent themes of falling and slamming up against an indifferent world.

Pina demanded from her dancers an open and authentic response to her vision and ideas, whether that be through dance, song, mime, spoken words or other. Dance technique and young bodies were not prerequisites for this revolutionized language of dance. Some of the Tanztheater dancers have been with the company for 35 years. As Pina said, “I’m not concerned with the way my dancers move, but what moves my dancers.”

Bausch changed dance fundamentally by removing the smiling ethereal ballerina attempting to float above us, replacing her with a fusion of radical interactive theatre, surreal imagery and ‘danced body language’. In contemporary dance today the influence of Bausch is seen in its rawness, relative freedom and willingness to explore a variety of forms so as to expose an internal world. Her influence is also seen in the way choreographers work with their dancers – a 2-pronged process where through improvisation ‘tasks’ the choreographer allows the soul of the dancer to enter the process.

Belgian choreographer Alain Platel was particularly influenced by Bausch; work-shopping ideas in the studio, asking dancers to improvise and drawing on dancers’ personal experiences. “Everyone in contemporary theatre is working the same way…there’s a long, wild period of improv…trying many different things. I was very shaken by the work of Pina.”

Meryl Tankard, Australian choreographer and former Artistic Director of Australian Dance Theatre (ADT), was a soloist with Danztheater Wuppertal for 6 years. The influence of Bausch is seen through her bringing together dynamic movement, singing, acting and music with a strong emotional content. Works such as Inuk 2 bring to mind Bausch-type themes with dancer/audience interaction, the use of water on stage, dancers crying out and a lack of narrative.

Pina Bausch’s vision for dance was essentially one without borders, adopting theatrical innovations where dancers move amongst the audience, musicians play on stage and multi-media is used. Theatre sets sometimes included piles of earth, rock formations and flowing water.  Her influence and collaboration included such filmmakers as Wenders and Almodovar whose movie Hable con ella (Talk to Her) opens with segments from Café Müller.

Wender’s film Pina is more than a tribute to an artist who was central to his own work.  He has crafted one of the few truly dance-centred films in recent years, seriously taking the challenge of dance to connect with an audience and covey life; in this case a singular life interpreted solely through dance.

For anyone interested in dance this film provides an insight into an artist who demanded authenticity and creativity with single-minded zeal.  While the loss of Pina is strongly felt in the film and throughout the contemporary dance community, her life and artistic vision still continue to inspire artists in various forms.

The film Pina was presented on the final night of the 2011 German Film Festival on 11 April 2011 at the Sydney Opera House. Wim Wenders was in attendance and gave an interview after the screening.

23 August – 4 September 2011

2011 will mark the third year of Sydney Opera House’s Spring Dance – Australia’s only international, contemporary dance festival. Curated by Wendy Martin, highlights of the festival will include a world premiere from Lloyd Newson’s UK-based company DV8, the first ever Sydney performance by Alain Platel’s acclaimed les ballets C de la B from Belgium and Spain’s avant-garde flamenco artist Israel Galvan who will perform in Australia for the first time.

This year Spring Dance will be dedicated to the legacy of Pina Bausch, one of the most influential and innovative choreographers of the twentieth century. Martin said, ‘By showcasing the work of choreographers Lloyd Newson and Alain Platel, we will bring together two artists who cite the enormous influence Bausch has had on their work. This seems like the perfect springboard to explore the influence this iconic dance maker has had on the landscape of contemporary Australian dance.’ A series of films and discussions will look at the singular vision of Pina Bausch and her Tanztheater Wuppertal.

Artwork - Ros Warby, Monumental, photo: L. Tomasetti; les ballets C de la B, Out of Context – for Pina, photo: C. Van Der Burght

In 2011 Spring Dance will take over the Western Foyers with performances in the Drama Theatre, Studio and Playhouse and a series of talks, masterclasses and exhibitions in the Western Foyer and precinct.

Sydney Opera House will host the world premiere of DV8’s, Can we talk about this? choreographed and devised by Artistic Director Lloyd Newson. Like his recent productions that have combined dance with verbatim theatre to tackle social and political issues head-on, Can we talk about this? will explore ideas around freedom of speech.

Alain Platel’s company, les ballets C de la B, will present the award-winning production Out of Context: For Pina. For its first Sydney season, it will include a ‘Pina Intervention’ by acclaimed Australian choreographer Meryl Tankard who was a star of Pina Bausch’s company in the late 70’s and early 80’s.

Israel Galvan, the daringly innovative Flamenco artist from Seville will come to Sydney Opera House with the Australian premiere of his award-winning production Le Edad de Oro which uses the techniques and artistry of Flamenco while building on tradition to create a new, pared-back aesthetic for the genre.

Chunky Move returns to Spring Dance with I Like This – a witty and irreverent take on the making of a dance piece, created by two of Australia’s finest contemporary dancers and emerging choreographers, Byron Perry and Antony Hamilton.

The work of Melbourne-based dancer and choreographer Ros Warby has been acclaimed by critics around the world. She will return to Sydney to perform the award-winning Monumental at Spring Dance, in which she explores ideas around two iconic symbols of classical ballet: the swan and the soldier.

And for younger audiences, Sydney Opera House will present The Forest by the UK-based performance company Fevered Sleep. The Forest will reflect their interest in creating design-focused productions that develop theatrical environments to envelop their audience and draw them into a world of fantasy, intrigue, movement and storytelling.

This year’s Spring Dance festival will offer the rare opportunity to be taught by some of the world’s great dancers and choreographers with 6 master classes on offer. There will be a series of panel discussions, hosted by Caroline Baum, with prominent dancers and choreographers looking at Pina Bausch and her legacy. They will be accompanied by a program of film screenings.

Top photo:  Ros Warby – Monumental, Photo: Lisa Tommasetti