Monumental

PERFORMANCE SPACE present MONUMENTAL, ROS WARBY at Carriageworks.

"MONUMENTAL is Roz Warby's critically acclaimed solo dance work, developed in collaboration with her long standing artistic team, designer Margie Medlin and composer Helen Mountford. It premiered at the Melbourne International Arts Festival in October 2006 and received the Age Critics Commendation Award, Greenroom Awards for Best Female Dancer and Best Composition, and the Robert Helpmann Award for Best Female Dancer in a Ballet or Dance Work."

On a screen are projected pre-existing vintage film images of bird life intermixed with motion graphics of the dancer herself. Accompanied by a beautifully apt musical design, Ros Warby appears in a white body suit/feathered tutu/white cap. In beautiful, gently calibrated body/dance movements from simple eye to ultimately full body engagement, the dancer's expressions are juxtaposed in front of the projected images. In later sequences Ms Warby is dressed in black pants and long sleeved jacket, edged with a white trimming, and black helmet-like cap. The body expressions are principally upper torso and arms. Later a black tutu is added to the suit.

The combination of the lighting and image (Margie Medlin) the music design (Helen Mountford) along with the dancer produce a totally engrossing experience. I sat there believing in witnessing a "high art" experience. It seemed I was watching an Artist who with every gesture was so completely intent and informed with objective that I was compelled to a state of absorption. "MONUMENTAL draws from the iconic symbols of classical ballet, the swan and the soldier." Ms Warby gives us wonder, humour and deeply affecting images. The meaning of my experience in the theatre seems to be unimportant to the experiential transportation that I had. It was a kind of "rapture" and all the artists had a significant input to the success of the piece. Nevertheless, the extraordinary focus and energy of Ms Warby is especially marvellous. Alongside Peter Fraser's recent work: TARKOVSKY'S HORSE, this work forms a feminine counterbalance to that recent dance experience at Performance space. Both highly memorable.

This work is about to commence an international tour in the US.