Adelaide Festival. Dance North. Space Theatre. 14 Mar 2024
Waiting in an overheated foyer for a delayed performance can dampen the spirits somewhat, but it doesn’t take long to lose the tension and go with the flow; go wayfinding. ‘Why are there white balloons on intermittent seats?’ wonders the audience as we find our way to our seats. But they’re not balloons, they’re weighty globes that quietly hum and emit the palest light. On the dimly lit stage, we can just see the shape of a figure, also holding one of these globes.
Suddenly, an explosion of light, sound and movement, and we’re off!
Wayfinder has played to Brisbane, Sydney and Perth Festivals and now it’s Adelaide’s turn. And what a turn it is. The eight dancers, dressed in myriad rainbow colours, put on a fusion of contemporary dance, hip hop and acrobatics with the most wonderful collaboration of light and sound to be seen on stage for some time. Choreographers Kyle Page and Amber Haines have not so much presented a narrative here as a series of conjoined vignettes, and their partnership with visual designer Hirome Tango (set and costumes), sound artist Byron J Scullion and lighting designer Niklas Pajanti has made for a production that is as entertaining as it is thought provoking.
It's so wonderful to see colour again; it’s like landing in Oz after the sepia tones of Kansas. And it’s not just the costumes; the frenetic and affirming opening gives way to an avalanche of coloured woven woollen threads falling from the sky, which soon form a motif for the piece, returning again and again. And when I say avalanche, I don’t use the term loosely. The bespoke inflated stage (appearing like an extremely large camping mattress) is literally covered in the brightly woven rope strands. These strands were apparently woven by a large volunteer cohort around Townsville and give a whole new perspective to the term ‘yarning’.
And the white globes? You hear the music before you realise it’s coming from your lap where you’re nestling this object. And the one next to you is making a different sound, and the harmonic chorus fills the room; the globes glow brighter and brighter, almost as bright as the smiles of the audience.
The stage becomes more inflated, and dancers bounce from corner to corner; a mesmerising ballet of percussive arms morphs into more colour, more sound and a second inflated stage cum wall (at one point what appears to be the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey) and oh my, smiles from the dancers! The whirling cacophony of coloured choreography seems sometimes to have faltered, to have lost focus, to be slightly out of sync; then the synergy kicks in and the tightly synced dancers are exactly where they should be, when they should be. Wayfinding indeed.
There’s no point singling out highlights from this production; this is a collaborative effort from start to finish, and everyone is a star. Wayfinder is a glutinous feast for the eyes and ears; a journey of light, colour and sound. We are the richer for being navigated here by Dance North.
Arna Eyers-White
When: 15 to 17 Mar
Where: Space Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
Adelaide Festival. Mio Rau/NT Gent & MST. Dunstan Playhouse. 15 Mar 2024
Implanting Sophocles' great tragedy of Antigone, she who some people call the first feminist, upon the modern global tragedy of the cruel displacement of the Amazonian indigenes draws a long bow.
For Swiss writer and director, Milo Rau, it completes a trilogy of ancient myths preceded by Orestes in Mosul and his Jesus play, The New Gospel.
It is as well to understand that Rau is known as a “great disrupter” in the scheme of modern theatre. He cares for shock factors and grim themes. Herein, man’s inhumanity to man is depicted in the roughshod domination of the Amazonian indigenes by the male forces of greed and ever-expansive capitalist exploitation of resources.
Like feisty Antigone, little women of an embattled Brazilian village world seek to stand up: landless workers; valiant activists; modern Davids against today’s capitalist Goliaths.
The script involves a great deal of political explanation, fairly heavy-duty didacticism with the assumption that an audience begins with no knowledge. Indeed, in Rau’s quasi Brechtian anti-theatre style, there evolve descriptions of how and why, as theatre-makers, the troupe chose its Brazilian locations. These locations which become familiar to the audience thanks to huge video screens which scroll down to bring the backdrop world to life on the stage as a documentary simulcast. This is absolutely brilliant, excellently synchronised with the action on stage, so much so that the actors sometimes seem to be a part of the projected images. They are, of course, right there in those images, insofar as the two worlds, stage and screen, are married in the narrative as the shatteringly terrible Brazilian massacre is re-enacted in your face. It is Rau ensuring that the audience is appalled by the immediacy of a far-away horror story. The story is told in Portuguese, Dutch and Tucano with English surtitles high onstage.
The arrival of the covid pandemic is included, rather cleverly describing that eerie calm we all felt in the centre of its storm. It is interesting contexualisation.
There are four performers onstage. Pablo Castella is both actor and musical accompanist and his soundscape flows through the production. Frederico Araujo is principal, an elegance of a human being who can transition from hysteria to fatalism in a trice. Janne Desmet and Joel Happel are onstage based around a table upon which sit ample supplies of bottled water and perchance assorted props. Costume and character changes are performed there.
With the ancient Greek theme prevailing, the acting style veers to anti-naturalistic, perchance at times to ham.
On occasion, performance itself is doubled when, for instance, the troupe performs Antigone on screen for the indigenes in a village pavilion in the depths of the Amazon while also performing it live onstage in Adelaide. Not always exactly the same cast members. Some are still in Brazil. The Adelaide season has the aforementioned four. The transitions of these places and themes are interesting and the documentary visit to the indigenous community makes for quite a cultural revelation.
The heartlessness of ancient Greek rules plays into the ruthlessness of contemporary land-grabbers and, onstage, the mesmerising Araujo descends into a strenuous lather of desperation upon the carpet of pseudo earth. It is among several moments of searing agony. But, there also are times when the stage action slows to a crawl of attenuated emphasis, a challenging Rau device.
Milo Rau’s Antigone in the Amazon creates a powerful night in the theatre. Not that it tells us anything new. The greatest monster on earth is man. Man’s enemy is man. The planet’s enemy is man.
So it was in ancient Greece and so it is today.
Dammit.
Samela Harris
When: 15 to 17 Mar
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
Adelaide Festival. Australian Dance Theatre. Odeon Theatre. Choreography: Daniel Riley. 13 Mar 2024
An opening night invited set. A premiere of a new work. The 60th year of Australia’s longest running contemporary dance ensemble to be celebrated and an Arts Minister and also the company’s founder in attendance. There was much to celebrate.
As Daniel Riley explained to the full house, Marrow was conceived and delivered as a response to the ‘No’ vote against the Voice to Parliament referendum of last year. Riley is a Wiradjuri man and the title, then, suggests a deep-seated response, as in ‘I feel it in my marrow’… the welcome from Major Moogy Sumner sets a scene of great importance, and of reconciliation, but make no mistake, Marrow is a piece of dance which lays bare the pain and the rejection, a legacy of a lifetime yet just on six months ago. The wounds are fresh, the dance shot through with symbolism, a hunting motif draws a picture of a people who were tracked down and persecuted, or slaughtered.
There is an element of the furtive about the work. There is no bright sunlight of the Australian bush; there are shadows and shapes and faces hinted out as figures move and writhe. What may have been a thunderstorm reveals itself as the drumroll of gunfire. The lighting is for the most part subdued, by design (Matthew Adey) and intent, though at one moment a sharply piercing white pinspot transfixes the audience. If it were intended to be disconcerting, it succeeded. There is smoke; a great deal of smoke which seems more funerary than celebration. This is a work of darkness, and in places of foul deeds. A bolt of cloth is rolled and folded to approximate a body, trussed with cable ties, then hauled aloft. It is a striking moment, a commentary on the cruelty which continues to this day. It is not visceral, and oddly, it is less than emotional for the audience, though it’s message – writ large – is crystal clear.
My problem, then, is that there is a confusion in the contributions of dance, of lighting, and of sound, and it begins with the score, which is the most striking and leading aspect of the whole work. Broadly described as techno with an industrial bent, James Howard’s score guides the dance experience, adding flavour and style and rather dominating proceedings. Without it I would have been lost; there is a scene where the techno turns to water, the babbling of water a beautifully realised transition. But at some of the most important points it dominates what is still at heart a piece of contemporary dance. To my mind the dancers – there are six of them, Sebastian Geilings, Brianna Kell, Zachary Lopez, Karra Nam, Patrick O’Luanaigh and Zoe Wozniak – were excellent, both individually and as a corps, yet they faced a difficult task in making themselves the focal point. The stage was dim (I might say dulled) by lighting, by smoke, by surrounding drapes, and the dancers themselves dressed in what may have been sackcloth.
Only in the final scene, when the side panels of the stage are torn down to let the light flood in, do we see what – surely – was a deliberate restoring of our senses. Marrow is an important piece of work, but a watershed? Perhaps not.
Alex Wheaton
When: 13 to 17 Mar
Where: Odeon Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
★★★1/2
Riverland Youth Theatre. The Arch, Holden Street Theatres. 12 Mar 2024
Brush up your classical Greek mythology before heading down to Holden Street. Of all unlikely things, a group of young thespians from the Riverland has mounted a wildly ambitious production of their own contemporary take on Euripides’ The Baccahe.
They have realised that there are topical parallels to be drawn from the story of outrageous and vengeful ancient gods. Hence, their “adaptation” is a ride of queer, gay, non-binary, tranny liberation in togas and hippie flowers.
They rejoice at vulgarity, arrogance and violence.
Language warnings are outré in the theatre but vernacular runs rampant in this show, as does the tedious conjunction(?) “like”.
Everything is, like, really, like gay.
Star of the show is of course, Dionysus, the god of fun, fertility, wine, and madness who is embodied in a flourishing celebration of high camp by Owen Stokes. It is Dionysus' story of rivalry and vengeance and the stage swarms with it all, it being a large cast. They’ve incorporated some gorgeous new-age gods such as the god of digital art and the excellent god of puberty and even a god of fan-fiction.
There is a dire need for firmer direction since a lot of the dialogue is inaudible due to lack of projection, shyness, or simply trying to deliver lines while lying on the stage.
What shines forth from the Riverland ensemble is a sense of joyful liberation.
They are having fun with the classics. Catch up if you can.
There are some promising talents onstage, among them Sophie Landau, Timu King, Rowen Hurrell, and Axel Lochert, as well as keen support players in Anni Mates, Zelda Edwards, Levi Button, and Arlo Sharp. All of them are under the lovingly supportive direction of Fleur Kilpatrick. Keira Simmons adds over-arching atmosphere with an interesting soundscape and Li Ingle has done a valiant job with costumes albeit the set with its panda toys is a bit puzzling.
One has to give it to this Riverland mob. They have braved the Fringe with something completely different.
All power to them. And let the gods stay with them.
Samela Harris
When: 12 to 15 Mar
Where: The Arch, Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. The Bunker at Fool's Paradise. 7 Mar 2024
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. This could well be the slogan of Express Move Me & Scratch Arts, the outfits behind Moist, because it is unchanged from last year, and that is a shame.
Moist is a homoerotic circus show featuring four guys who don’t wear very much and enjoy getting wet and raunchy. The most interesting physical theatre/circus shows have a narrative that holds the performance together and give the audience a structure with which to make sense of the whole thing, at least subliminally.
The premise of Moist is unashamedly thin. The main protagonist is thirsty, very thirsty (and not just for hydration!) and he seeks to quench his thirst any way he can. If one of his former lovers might come to the party and help him out, then so much the better! Did I say thin? I meant tissue thin, but it doesn’t matter, because the audience isn’t there to be cerebrally stretched, they are there for a raunchy good time, and that’s exactly what they get. And, by the way, Fringe HQ advised ticketholders by email that the show’s rating had changed from MA15+ to R18+ !
So, what do you get for your hard-earned coin? You see four men strutting their stuff in orange jockstraps and lavender leotards as they engage in high-energy gymnastics, balancing and tumbling tricks while a pulsating underscore plays throughout and keeps your toes tapping. These guys are sexy and have no problems flaunting their stuff in your face, almost literally. There is lots of water being splashed about, some of it in an artistic way, and on one occasion with a nod to Sandro Botticelli’s ‘The Birth of Venus’, but for the most part it is simply with gay abandon.
This show is tongue-in-your-cheek good sexy fun. Plain and simple. If the show comes back next year, let’s hope it includes some new material.
Kym Clayton
When: 7 to 17 Mar
Where: The Bunker at Fool's Paradise
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au