Sunday, April 20, 2014

Safety In Numbers

'Safety In Numbers' (2014) from sam chester on Vimeo.


Form Dance Projects and Riverside present Dance Bites 2014 : SAFETY IN NUMBERS in the Lennox Theatre, Riverside Theatres, Parramatta.

Out to Parramatta to catch a new dance work called SAFETY IN NUMBERS, Directed by Sam Chester under the auspices of Form Dance Projects.

This work, says Ms Chester in her Director's note, has been made…
in various short incarnations since 2011 ... (and is) set in the aftermath of an earthquake. (It) …explores, holding on and letting go and the idea of things not being built to last. As a way into the world we investigated true stories of survivors and found it filled with yearning, hope and change. We also looked at our own inner shaking, and that at some stage in all of our lives we are standing in the rubble (metaphorically) - whether through grief, loss relationships or simply trying to deal with this enormous life.
The five performers were Gavin James Clarke, Leeke Griffin, Anya Mckee, Danielle Micich (all trained dancers) and an actor/mover, Simon Corfield.

What stays in the memory is a tremendously ethereal contemporary sound score composition by Ekrem Mulayim and a number of images lit beautifully by Verity Hampson: the movers/dancers standing/moving in the upward draughts from many floor level angled fans, creating the effect of wind billowing gently through their hair and contemporary clothes, in the slow motioned suspensions of plastic bags and yellow raincoats (a la AMERICAN BEAUTY), shrouded in a smoky haze. These 'romantic' images vary and are scattered throughout this 50 minute work - and they are entrancing. In between there is movement, it, however, is, less remarkable and not danced, in my appreciation, with the confidence of real finish, and so the narrative and investigation of the above, Director's intentions, seemed unresolved in their clarity.

There was enough pleasure in the score and some of the imagery, but for a work begun in 2011 and presented in 2014, it felt far from complete in terms of its clarity, or physical finish.

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