'Sheoak', Luke Currie Richardson, Yolanda Lowatta and Beau Dean Riley Smith, Photo © Jacob Nash

Lore. Bangarra Dance Theatre

9 July 2015, Canberra Theatre

It would be hard to find two such disparate works as the two that make up lore, Bangarra Dance Theatre’s latest program curated by the company’s artistic director, Stephen Page. I.B.I.S, the opener, is the debut choreographic work from two artists from the Torres Strait Islands, Deborah Brown and Waangenga Blanco, and it is filled with fun, laughter and joyous dancing. Sheoak is from established choreographer, Frances Rings, and has a more sombre tone. While this work ends on a note of hope, it deals with serious issues that have powerful political overtones. But both are thrilling to watch and give us, once more, an insight into the depth of talent in the Bangarra family, which includes not just the dancers and choreographers, but the whole creative team.

I.B.I.S begins in a supermarket belonging to the Island Board of Industry and Services (hence the name I.B.I.S) and its customers are there not just to shop, but to socialise as well. We know though that they also shop there. A cheery dance by the women, who manipulate metal shopping baskets, makes that quite clear.

'I.B.I.S', Deborah Brown & Waangenga Blanco, 2015. Photo: © Jeff Tan — *I.B.I.S* with Deborah Brown & Waangenga Blanco, Bangarra Dance Theatre, 2015. Photo: © Jeff Tan

As the work progresses, however, we meet the fishermen who catch the sea creatures that fill the freezer cabinets. And we even meet the sea creatures themselves when they escape from the freezer at night.

But the essence of I.B.I.S is the community spirit that permeates Island life. There is a wonderful picnic-style section where the men dance for the women and then the women dance for the men, amid much shouting and many exclamations. And the highlight is the final section, which comes almost unexpectedly after it seems that the show is over. The full ensemble returns wearing traditional island skirts and headdresses and performs an absolutely exhilarating traditional dance, which clearly shows the many influences from Melanesia and Polynesia that characterise the culture of the Torres Strait Islands.

Sheoak focuses on environmental issues. The sheoak tree, the grandmother tree in indigenous lore, is endangered and, in the opening scene, we see pyramid of dancers gradually collapsing. The metaphor of the tree as Aboriginal society continues, and the keeper of the place in which the tree grows mourns its loss. Societal dysfunction results and the community faces the challenges of operating in a new environment. Choreographically, Rings has given the dancers stumbling movements that make them look disoriented. And a stunning duet between Elma Kris and Yolanda Yowatta is a highlight as an encounter between the old order and the new. Yowatta is currently a trainee with Bangarra and her beautifully fluid style of moving is an absolute delight.

Elma Kris made a major contribution to both works. In I.B.I.S she played the role of the owner of the store and her opening dance with a mop was a delight. But it was in Sheoak as the keeper of the lore that her strength as a performer, her commanding presence, was so clear. Hope for the future shone through.

Elma Kris in 'Sheoak'. Banggara Dance Theatre, 2015. Photo: © Edward Mulvihill — Elma Kris in *Sheoak*. Bangarra Dance Theatre, 2015. Photo: © Edward Mulvihill

As ever with Bangarra productions, lore was enhanced by a strong visual design. Karen Norris’ lighting for Sheoak was especially outstanding. It created a somewhat eerie atmosphere that set the work in an indefinable time. Jacob Nash continues to create minimal but very effective sets and Jennifer Irwin’s costumes again show her exceptional layering of textiles, notably in Sheoak. The evocative original scores were by David Page for Sheoak and Steve Francis for I.B.I.S.

If I have a grumble, it is that I would have liked to have seen better unison dancing (when unison was an intended part of the choreography). But it is hard to grumble when we are presented with the magnificent theatricality that characterised lore.

Michelle Potter, 15 July 2015

Featured image: Sheoak with Luke Currie Richardson, Yolanda Lowatta and Beau Dean Riley Smith. Photo: © Jacob Nash

Australian Dance Awards 2014

The annual Australian Dance Awards were announced in Sydney last night in a ceremony at the Sydney Opera House hosted by Frances Rings and Kip Gamblin. My report for The Canberra Times necessarily (and happily) focused on links to dance in the ACT. But congratulations to all.

Here is a link to my story in The Canberra Times.

Buzz Dance Theatre in 'Look the other way', Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Youth or Community Dance 2014. Photo: Ashley de Prazer — Buzz Dance Theatre in *Look the other way*, Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Youth or Community Dance 2014. Photo: © Ashley de Prazer

Michelle Potter, 10 November 2014

Season’s greetings & the ‘best of’ 2012

Thank you to those who have logged on to my website over the past year, especially those who have kept the site alive with their comments. I wish you the compliments of the season and look forward to hearing from you in 2013.

The best of 2012

Lists of the ‘best of’ will always be very personal and will depend on what any individual has been able to see. However, here are my thoughts in a number of categories with links back to my posts on the productions. I welcome, of course, comments and lists from others, which are sure to be different from mine.

Most outstanding new choreography: Graeme Murphy’s The narrative of nothing (despite its title), full of vintage Murphy moves but full of the new as well.

Most outstanding production: Bangarra Dance Theatre’s Terrain with choreography by Frances Rings and outstanding collaborative input from the creative team of Jennifer Irwin, Jacob Nash, Karen Norris and David Page.

Most outstanding performance by a dancer, or dancers: Lana Jones and Kevin Jackson in Balanchine’s Tschaikovsky pas de deux as part of the Australian Ballet’s 50th anniversary gala.

Most disappointing production: The Australian Ballet’s revival of Robert Helpmann’s Display. I’m not sure that anyone in the production/performance really ‘got it’ and it became simply a reminder that dance doesn’t always translate well from generation to generation, era to era.

Surprise of the year: Finucane and Smith’s Glory Box. While some may question whether this show was dance or not, Moira Finucane’s performance in Miss Finucane’s Collaboration with the National Gallery of Victoria (Get Wet for Art) was a wonderful, tongue-in-cheek comment on the angst-ridden works of Pina Bausch, and as such on Meryl Tankard’s more larrikin approach to serious issues.

Dancer to watch: Tammi Gissell. I was sorry to miss the Perth-based Ochre Contemporary Dance Company’s inaugural production, Diaphanous, in which Gissell featured, but I was impressed by her work with Liz Lea in Canberra as part of Science Week 2012 at CSIRO and look forward to the development of that show later in Canberra in 2013.

Beyond Australia: Wayne McGregor’s FAR, in which the choreography generated so much to think about, to talk over and to ponder upon.

Most frustrating dance occurrence: The demise of Australia Dancing and the futile efforts to explain that moving it to Trove was a positive step.

Michelle Potter, 16 December 2012

Tara Gower in 'Terrain'. Photo Greg Barrett

Terrain. Bangarra Dance Theatre

13 September 2012, Canberra Theatre

This is an expanded version of my review of Terrain published in The Canberra Times, 15 September 2012, under the title ‘Dancing into luscious terrain’.

Bangarra Dance Theatre’s Terrain is a mesmerising work in nine short parts. Billed as a hymn to country, it evokes the changing landscape of Lake Eyre while at the same time reflecting on the relationship of indigenous Australians to their land. Its power emerges at every level—choreographically, visually and musically and through some exceptionally fine performances by the dancers as well.

Yolande Brown and Travis de Vries in *Terrain*, Bangarra Dance Theatre, 2012. Photo: © Greg Barrett

Terrain is the work of choreographer Frances Rings and her dance making has many touches that mark her choreography as unusual and distinctive. She groups people together tightly at times and then suddenly a single body is thrust upwards and extends out of the complexity of it all. She often works on bodies that are positioned upside down so the legs and feet are the main focus. Sometimes the choreography jerks and bobs as in the section called ‘Spinifex’; at other times it flows smoothly and this is the quality we see in the final section ‘Deluge’. Occasionally a political stance draws out movement of a more forceful kind as in ‘Shields’ in which issues of land rights and recognition of indigenous people determine the choreographic style. The work has the stamp of Bangarra in the grounded quality of its movement: bodies rarely attempt to defy gravity. But it has the stamp of Rings in its delicacy and intricacy of movement.

The standout section for me was ‘Reflect’ in which Rings brought to life the meeting of earth and sky at the horizon. With its muted colour scheme of earthy green and brown, and consisting simply of a solo for Deborah Brown followed by a duet between Brown and Leonard Mickelo, it had a simplicity and purity to it. It called up a mysterious place where two worlds converge. ‘Spinifex’ was also bewitching as an ensemble of female dancers pranced and twisted across the stage in choreography that was inspired by the trees around Lake Eyre. My eye was also often drawn to Waangenga Blanco in several sections. He dances with such a fluid upper body and his movement streams out to his fingertips. His dancing was especially strong in the finale, ‘Deluge’, when water and hence life began to flow into Lake Eyre.

The work of Bangarra has always been distinguished by a strong visual aesthetic. For Terrain set designer Jacob Nash began with a bright, white stage that was gradually filled with changing colours and light. His major contribution was a series of abstract back cloths and each was a distinctive work of art in its own right. They ranged from a strong red and black cloth with a central focus of a circular black and white motif for ‘Scar’, to the soft green and brown impressionistic cloth against which ‘Reflect’ was danced. All the cloths were enhanced by the lighting design of Karen Norris, and indeed her lighting was a major design element in the first three sections.

Jennifer Irwin’s costumes were quite stunning. Diverse in their cut and in their sculptural qualities, they were beautifully textured and designed so that light playing on them could change their appearance completely. The women’s skirts for ‘Spinifex’, for example, often looked like lace as bodies swirled into a patch of light. A feathered, tight fitting, short bolero style jacket was alluring in ‘Salt’ and the flowing, lightly patterned skirts for men and women in ‘Deluge’ captured beautifully the feel of water.

Terrain was danced to an original score by David Page. It was lush and romantic at times, sparse and even harsh at other times. It flowed along with the choreography and vice versa.

Terrain is a wonderfully integrated work in which people, politics and country are delicately balanced. The spirit of a constantly changing Lake Eyre courses through the entire piece and the work secures Bangarra’s position as a treasure on the Australian dance landscape.

Michelle Potter, 15 September 2012

Of earth and sky. Bangarra Dance Theatre

23 July–28 August 2010, Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House

Bangarra Dance Theatre, which was founded by Carole Johnson in 1989, has entered its twenty-first year with a program of two works under the generic title Of earth and sky. Riley, a work by emerging choreographer Daniel Riley McKinley, represents the sky of the title, while Artefact choreographed by well established dancer and choreographer Frances Rings represents the earth. The program as a whole suggests a potential new direction for Bangarra.

The inspiration for Riley came from the work of the late indigenous photographer and film maker Michael Riley, in particular from his series of photographic prints in which an object is digitally manipulated to float against a background of a soft blue sky dotted with clouds. They are single objects, a feather, a locust, a bible, a boomerang, a broken wing, an angel, and they reflect McKinley’s own indigenous background in rural New South Wales and, at times, the conflict between Aboriginal and Christian spirituality.

Riley’s cloud photographs are projected in turn onto a screen and McKinley’s choreography grows from and is shaped by his reflections on the objects. The choreography for the boomerang image, for example, swirls and turns, while that for the locust gathers strength of movement so that it buzzes and swarms as David Page’s electronic music develops an insistent power. The highlight is a duet, Angel, danced by Waangenga Blanco and Leonard Mickelo. They carry each other shoulder high, proudly and powerfully, as a stone angel hovers as the background image.

Riley is an impressive, if occasionally unsophisticated, choreographic beginning for McKinley. With its abstraction from any form of narrative it is quite different from much of the material we have seen from Bangarra over the previous two decades.

Artefact is the latest in a string of works made for Bangarra by Rings, who has recently been appointed resident choreographer for the company. It looks at objects of the earth such as string bags, grinding stones, bodies, weaving and coolamun (an aboriginal carrying vessel) for its inspiration. The opening sequence, called Museum, sets the scene for what follows. In it Daniel Riley McKinley and Travis de Vries, the latter a dancer on secondment to Bangarra, alternately wrap, hide and present themselves in an enormous possum skin cloak, a museum artefact that resonates nevertheless with the spirituality with which it was originally imbued. Rings appears also to be moving more towards abstraction and her choreography unfolds smoothly and organically, even lyrically at times, with some arresting movement for groups of dancers.

Bangarra has always been known for the strength of its visual aesthetic and Of earth and sky is no exception. In particular its lighting by the team of Damien Cooper and Matt Cox is subtle and evocative. But perhaps what emerges most strongly from this production is the potential movement towards abstraction, or away from strongly narrative works, by its choreographers. It could be an interesting new decade.

Michelle Potter, 5 August 2010