Blind Date

MIAF 2006TY
Blind Date
Bill T Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company
Melbourne International Arts Festival
25 October 2006
the Arts Centre, State Theatre

Review by Christina Cass

Blind Date is a multi-sensory experience unlikely to make you casually walk out of the theatre and drive back to your nice, safe home nestled far away from the madding roar of war.

I was unhappy at first that this hugely layered undertaking by the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company seemed to be some more trite America bashing – the U.S. national anthem, army fatigues, symbolic death on the battlefields juxtaposed with peace protectors…… I’m just tired of people taking jabs at Uncle Sam and here I had to sit through an hour and a half of a visual and aural bombardment of political and social atrocities performed by a highly acclaimed American dance troupe. “Whaaaa!?!?!?” you may say, but therein lays the spirit of Jones’ work: pushing buttons so we ask ourselves, “Why are we so uncomfortable with this?”

Not in the mood for a psychotherapy session either, I reluctantly took a stab at it: “What is it about Blind Date that was such a turn off?” Was it aural and visual overload with all the videos and spoken word and live music and dancing and poetry and gigantic dead yellow duckies floating above the stage that kept me from zeroing in on the theme? Was I frustrated that I wasn’t able to find more than the obvious anti-war message? That I couldn’t ‘get it’?

It turns out I was totally off the mark to look for a message from Jones hidden somewhere in the work. It was in plain view the entire time. Jones believes our global culture is awash with “toxic certainty” – the right or wrong of a particular position and in Blind Date, he takes on the concept of patriotism. To him, honour, sacrifice and identity are best observed in the phenomenon of young soldiers willing to participate in a misguided war. If those of us, who are not fighting, reject this idea of patriotism, then we must ask ourselves, “Do we believe in anything with the same passion that we are willing to die for it?”

Good point.

Jones, as many artists do, takes a social stand laced with political poison. Rather than ram his own personal opinions down the throats of his audience, he asks us to merely take a bit more care in understanding our own philosophies and where they come from. He asks us to take a stand, not point a finger.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

blessing the boats

MIAF 2006
blessing the boats
Melbourne International Arts Festival
20 October 2006
the Arts Centre, Fairfax Studio

Review by Christina Cass

blessing the boats, written and performed by Sekou Sundiata, is one man’s personal mythology into and out of the depths of a prolonged near-death experience – of five years. The profound imagery Sundiata portrays through his gorgeous baritone spoken word transports the listener to another continent – Harlem, USA – to be exact, where Sundiata discovers he has renal disease.

By 1997 the undiagnosed warning signs of hypertension, chronic fatigue and flu-like symptoms are merely chalked up to his busy lifestyle: writing and performing his poetry and music. Not until he passes out in an elevator where he remains unnoticed for “two minutes or twenty minutes?” does his medical nightmare of kidney failure begin.

This story of “unearned grace,” as Sundiata describes it, is one with earth angels who come from unexpected places to aid a man who clearly doubted his own life was worthwhile. After years of dialysis and 18 months on the kidney transplant waiting list, there are five friends who stepped up to the offering plate – four of them were perfect matches; there is a woman with the cell phone who literally saved his neck after a car accident; and the list goes on. By the end of the performance, we are inclined to take pause and appreciate the everyday blessing that we ourselves are graced with.

Sundiata uses video imagery, music and multiple impersonations of his no-bullshit subconscious, medical “practicing” doctors and death stalking his hospital bed to take us to the ultimate celebration – life. He moves slowly and with purpose, around the stage into and out of lights, but perhaps therein lies my only complaint. I wish there was more energy in the overall performance. It may be due to a bit of ennui performing blessing the boats for several years now around the world, or most likely jet lag kicking in and kicking butt, but Sundiata’s normally commanding and rich voice didn’t carry nor did the celebratory nature of his story resonate through his body.

It would be a shame to say this coloured my experience of the profound poetry that is uniquely Sekou Sundiata, but it did. I can only hope that he is more well-rested for his second highly anticipated show of the festival, the 51st (dream) state.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

Tragedia Endogonidia BR.#04 Brussels

MIAF 2006
Tragedia Endogonidia BR.#04 Brussels
Socíetas Raffaello Sanzio
Melbourne International Arts Festival
12 October 2006
CUB Malthouse, Merlyn Theatre

Kristy Edmunds program selection polarised opinions in 2005. The opening weekend of the 2006 festival has already evoked similar extreme responses. Post show discussions are not about details of interpretation, but whether works are brilliant or appalling. Tragedia Endogonidia BR.#04 Brussels is either a must see event or a boring and irrelevant piece of self indulgence.

Socíetas Raffaello Sanzio was founded in 1981 by Romeo Castellucci. The Tragedia Endogonidia series was developed between 2002 and 2004 in ten European cities. This process produced 11 episodes, each working as an individual production. Melbourne is seeing the fouth episode, developed in Brussels.

Visually the production is stunning. Castellucci creates theatre as art. His use of colour, space, and light create powerful images and his stage is continually presented as a well-designed canvas. He juxtaposes human with non-human forms and plays with unexpected and absurd combinations. A beared old man appears in a garish floral bikini and eventually proceeds to put on a complicated set of white (religious?) robes and finally a police uniform. It’s humorous, and quite literally layered with multiple meanings.

Tragedia Endogonidia BR.#04 Brussels has everything I usually love in a production. Dense theatrical language, creation of new form, abandonment of tradition, blood, violence and a small rhinocerous. It presents images and moments without explanation and forces the audience to devise their own interpretation. It could simply be that you are born, you die and get the crap beaten out of you in between - or a complex reconstruction of personal identity - or a contemplation about physical endurance - or an exploration of aging - or an intellectual deconstruction of the traditional dramatic form of tragedy, using traditions from the avant guarde.

By leaving interpretation open, Tragedia Endogonidia BR.#04 Brussels certainly does force you to consider your role as spectator and observer, but I wasn’t engaged with what I was watching.
This production aims to communicate directly to all our senses. I understood it intellectually, but had limited emotional and certainly no visceral reaction. I was neither shocked nor disturbed. Setting up the theatricality of the violence, diluted its impact.

The one consistent reaction to the production is the emotional response to the smallest cast member. A baby, not yet crawling, lies downstage. Its only company a metallic parody of a human head spouting nonsensical language. This cannot fail to provoke the universal reaction to gush at the cuteness of the child combined with the desire to protect it from its lonely existence – or even from the theatre makers who put a baby on the stage. We weren’t so keen to protect the old man in a bikini or even the man being continually beaten and forced into a body bag.

The opening night applause was lacklustre and unsure. It felt like the audience wanted to like it a lot more than they did. By all accounts the following night’s audience reaction was rapturous. Perhaps we just got a dud night.

Did I enjoy Tragedia Endogonidia BR.#04 Brussels? No. Am I glad it is in this program? Yes. The genius of this festival program is that it does create extreme reactions. An arts festival should continue to challenge and surprise its audience. We can chose to see safe, conservative (and mostly enjoyable) arts practice any other time of the year. Kristy Edmunds lets us experience challenging theatre from all over the world. Surely this can only benefit us as audiences and as practitioners.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com

insen

MIAF 2006
insen
Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto
Melbourne International Arts Festival
14 October 2006
the Arts Centre, Hamer Hall

 
The combination of electronic and acoustic in insen is like chilli and chocolate; it should be so very wrong, but is irresistible, addictive and perfect after the first tentative bite.

This is also another Melbourne Festival production provoking extreme reactions. People walked out during the performance I saw and I’ve read some very negative opinions. However I thought it was one of the most beautiful and emotive works of live music I have seen, and am flabbergasted that others didn’t get it.

insen is a live collaboration between electronic composer/visual artist Carsten Nicolai (performing as Alva Noto) and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. Sakamoto is a Grammy, Golden Globe and Oscar winning producer and composer, best known for his film scores including Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence and The Last Emperor. Alva Noto is a multimedia artist using sound, image, sculpture and the computer as his tools.

Sakamoto’s minimalist composition is filled with subtle tension and unexpected resolution. The synergy created by the piano and the precision of the manipulated electronic sounds is surprising and astonishing.

The performance continually juxtaposes the natural and the unnatural. The severe lines of Noto's desk sit next to the classic and natural curves of Sakamoto’s piano. The austere concentration of the electronic artist contrasts to the emotional playing of the pianist. The freedom of the piano music compares to the controlled pulsation of the electronic sounds.

The dominating element of this work is the visual. An elongated LCD screen sits behind the musicians. The screen, controlled by Noto, is a visual representation of the music. The images are all electronically-generated, symmetrical patterns created from the pixels of the screen. Please do not think this is anything like the patterns on a Windows music player. It would be like comparing a smiley face emoticon to the Mona Lisa. This isn’t just representation; this is art. Hypnotic, intriguing and layered with intelligence and understanding.

This might be what master musicians see in their heads. Noto’s electronic visuals perfectly demonstrate the complex structure, patterns and order of music. Sometimes it is representational, such as keys on a keyboard, or notes on a stave. Other times it is more the allusional, like the chaotic noise of hundreds of crossing white lines.

Rippling circles show the impact of a single note resonating throughout the whole piece. Bright, pulsating colours reflect the nuance of the slightest change in musical light or shade. Fading rectangles prove how the end of one note is the beginning of the next. Counterbalance becomes so clear when a strangely shaped chord sits above and within the straight pulsating bass lines.

I never knew that electronic could be so emotive and so human. It is strange, but fascinating, to see that music, our most instinctive art form, is based on pattern and order that can be recreated by a computer. It is like looking at the fractals in a mandelbrot set. There is recurring pattern and order in everything. Through knowledge of this order, the most original and creative understandings of our world emerge.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

Of All The People In All The World: Pacific Rim

MIAF 2006
Of All The People In All The World: Pacific Rim
Stan’s Cafe
14 October 2006
Arts House, Meat Market

Who knew a pile of rice could be so moving or so shocking, or that a single grain on a piece of paper could make us laugh out loud.

Of All The People In All The World: Pacific Rim is part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival free program. It is presented by Britain’s Stans Café theatre company, who specialise in creating unusual performances in a range of contexts.

The unusal feature of this performance is an ever changing installation created by 33 tonnes of rice. Each grain represents a person in the Pacific Rim. The original Of All The People In All The World: UK premiered in 2003 with 989 kgs of rice. The whole world version used over 100 tonnes of rice and was recently seen at at Stuttgart’s Theater der Welt Festival.

A team of performers weigh and measure the grains to represent a variety of population and human statistics. Like all statistics, figures mean little until they are tangible.

On entering the Meat Market you take your own grain of rice – which represents you. You can almost immediately find yourself in a pile that represents the population of Melbourne (and the other Melbourne’s around the world). There is the fun of discovering which other piles you belong in. These could include people at the MCG during the AFL grand final, people who work at home, people born in the UK, or even those in an incredibly disturbing mound: the number of people who watch Neighbours.

Some piles shock and surprise by their sheer mass, others by our ability to count the individual grains. The pile representing Holocost victims will never cease to be sobering (that is what 6 million looks like), as are the few grains representing the Amish school girls so recently murdered.

Others are striking in their comparisons. The population of Britain is about the same as the number of people who buy McDonalds every day. The number of prisoners in the world is the same as people living in gated communities in the USA.

As laughter is so often the more powerful emotion, the most engaging aspect of this work is the unexpected humour and wit. Titanic the movie compared to Tiantic the ship. People who walked on the moon next to a famous moonwalker. And do not leave until you have found the US Secretary of State.

Throughout your wanderings are the cast. Clad in brown lab coats, the “statistic scientists” move around observing their work, quietly chatting with the visitors, gently rearranging the perfect piles, painstakingly removing any marks on the white paper bases or checking that someone hasn’t added themselves to the smaller piles. When I was there someone had tried to join Michael Jackson.

All The People In All The World: Pacific Rim creates a profound level of understanding to the numbers and statistics that fill our lives. It is a work that could make you feel insignificant, but instead maintains the value and importance of every single person represented by a number.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Voyage

MIAF 2006
Voyage
dumb type
Melbourne International Arts Festival
18 October 2006
the Arts Centre , Playhouse

Voyage is certainly a trip. Fly, float, dive, swim, drown and climb through dumb type’s bizarre and beautiful world.

Formed in Kyoto in 1984, dumb type is a democratic collective bringing together artists from backgrounds in theatre, dance, video, painting, sculpture, music, design and architecture. Working without a director or script, performances develop organically as members share their own ideas around a theme. The company admit that it is a chaotic process that takes time, but it results in some startlingly art.

In late 2001 the dumb type artists independently developed pieces without any theme or concept. By working with unlimited freedom, they found a commonality. The result is Voyage. Travel and journey may be a comman narrative theme, but this voyage is far from ordinary.

dumb type don’t comment or narrate. They simply let powerful images speak for themsleves. The audience can chose to interpret deep meaning into each moment or simply sit back and enjoy the ride.

The images combine low tech with complex multi-media art. Two men sweeping white rocks around the stage take us deep into a cave, while giant projections take us flying through a performace poem about wishes. Projections are given depth by using the simple effect of a reflective floor.

The opening piece is the most striking of the show. A single pale dancer repeats very linear shapes among three giant spheres. The lighting changes on each sphere are stunning. The same dancer concludes the evening by repeating the same movements in front of the very complicated images of a radar screen. She gives a sense of narrative arc to the show. The world she journeys through has changed from simple, natural and symbolic to complex, technical and detailed – but she remains as she was.

Voyage is also filled with cheeky humour. I felt that the opening night audience were too scared to laugh - in case it wasn’t meant to be funny. Airline hosties in bright coloured berets and bright coloured knickers are funny in any context.

This show isn’t for everyone’s taste. A gentleman sitting behind me steadfastly refused to clap during the ovation. It is nonetheless, a work that firmly belongs in an international arts festival. Voyage is something we normally wouldn’t see in Australia and a style of practice that wouldn’t be conceived here.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

I La Galigo

MIAF 2006
I La Galigo
Melbourne International Arts Festival
19 October 2006
The Arts Centre, State Theatre

Robert Wilson’s I La Galigo was everything I expected it be. It is a gentle, hypnotic and perfectly beautiful work of live art. I am embarrassed for Melbourne’s arts community to see so many empty seats on its opening night at the Melbourne International Arts Festival.

I La Galigo is slightly different from a typical avant-guarde Wilson work. It’s only three hours long to begin with (Wilson on speed) and it is based on a narrative text. But Wilson fans don’t need to worry. There are still many slow crossings of the stage, the movement is precise, the communication visual and you can enjoy it without worrying about the story.

For those who like a narrative journey, this one is based on Sureq Galigo, an ancient epic poem of the Bugis people of South Sulawesi. There are surtitles to guide you, but reading the program before hand is advised. As stories go, this one is has it all - unrequited love, the threat of incest, intervention by the gods, child abandonment, a couple of great cats and a satisfying end.

This is a festival filled with explorations of new art forms and aesthetics, but I was apprehensive about the melding of traditional Indonesian with western avant-guarde. Then I saw the similarities, rather than the obvious differences. Traditional Indonesian dance drama is described as a “display of living drawings…. that are not intended to represent anything so much as to charm the mind”. Story unfolds slowly using strong visual images and almost no drama. This could describe Einstein on the Beach (Wilson’s best known work, seen at MIAF 1992).

The synthesis of the ancient and the (post) modern traditions is fascinating and unique. Wilson keeps the recognizable shapes and movements of Indonesian dance, but removes the individual performers personal and emotional interpretation. Yet the experience of the performance remains emotional and moving.

Colour and light are the passion of I La Galigo. It is difficult to describe the impact of colour in this production, but I now understand exactly what Kristy Edmunds meant when she said it invents colour before your eyes. The understanding of it is intuitive, rather than cognitive. We say we “see red” in anger. Wilson captures this exact red. It’s like a cross between a fire engine and a kiss-me-now red lipstick. His heaven is blue, but it’s unlike any blue I’ve seen. A perfect blue sky, mixed with a grey/purple sunset. It's comforting and inviting, but filled with hidden power and threat. Even his white is more than just white. And don’t get me started on the orange. Emotional impact aside, if you have any interest in light and colour in any artistic form, this is an un-missable production.

Text is almost irrelevant in the communication of I La Galigo, but it is chanted in the Bugis language. Fewer than 100 people speak this language today. This totally visual production is keeping an indigenous language alive. It has to be compared to last week’s Ngapartji Ngapartji , that shared an indigenous Australian language with us by teaching us how to speak it.

People did walk out and not return to I La Galigo. I appreciate that it can be a difficult style of theatre to understand, but the connection will come you just accept it, watch it and let it “speak” in its own way. The three hours is irrelevant. My only time check was two hours in and I was disappointed to realise just how much time had passed. Sure it could be told more quickly, but this an epic tale that deserves our respect and our time.

Interview

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

Now that Communism is Dead my Life Feels Empty

MIAF 2006
Now that Communism is Dead my Life Feels Empty
Malthouse Theatre and Melbourne International Arts Festival
17 October 2006
Tower Theatre, CUB Malthouse

There is nothing like the almost orgasmic feeling of being in a theatre when an audience applauds a show. The applause for Now that Communism is Dead my Life Feels Empty was NOTHING like that.

I listen to what audience members have to say about a show. This wasn’t the exciting extreme “lets discuss it” reactions caused by other festival productions – this was confusion, boredom and resentment. A complete stranger turned to me at the end and said, “that was excruciating”.

Now that Communism is Dead my Life Feels Empty is Richard Foreman 48th play and was first presented by Ontological-Hysteric Theater in 2001. The Kitchen Sink production is an original interpretation of the text. I read reviews, learnt about Ontological, spoke to people who have seen Foreman’s theatre and even downloaded the script. It took a lot of research to even grasp what this production was meant to be about. It’s quite clear in the original. This Communism included visual references to Foreman, but didn’t appear to reflect, resemble or resepct the original work.

Forman is known for his complex composition, his “turbulent ocean of multiplicity”. Robert Wilson (I La Galigo MIAF 06) is also known for his multiplicity. In a public lecture last week, Wilson described a production as being like a hamburger. All the elements can have opposing and differing textures, shapes and tastes, but together they are gratifying and delicious. Communism was like unsatisfying snack made from the leftover, stale, rotting and cheap ingredients found in a student share house fridge. It was the equivilent of a suburban musical society performing I La Galigo.

The direction and design did not reflect the complexity and multiplicity of the text. Director Max Lyandvert has worked with Romeo Castelluci (Tragedia Endogonidia BR.#04 Brussels MIAF 06). Castelluci’s positive influence is recognizable in the visual aspects of the work. However, where the visual language of Tragedia was powerful and layered with multiple interpretations, the visual aspects of Communism were cluttered and confusing.

Foreman doesn’t write narrative theatre. It is meant to be disorienting and non-senesical in a stream of consciousness kind of way. It’s also meant to be funny, being promoted as a “side splitting” comedy. I sniggered three times (I like the text), but I was alone. It is very strange to be the ONLY person in a full theatre who finds something funny. One actor resorted to visual humour. The pig nose of a face pushed up against perspex is always funny. It didn’t even raise a snicker.

Ben Winspear and Gibson Nolte both “performed” very well and I would like to see them in different works. What didn’t work was their a semi-naturalistic style. Grabs of naturalism made the audience want to search for character and meaning, instead of enjoying the flow of the script.

I am certain that the director and cast understand and love Foreman and his theatre, but they failed to share this understanding with the audience. I can hear them now saying that confusion, misinterpretation and alienation is what they were aiming for. Nonetheless, I read the New York Times review of the original production. It said how the audience faces reflected in the plastic screen on the stage were all smiling. The faces this night were grimacing. What is the point of theatre if you fail to share your stage world with the people sitting out front?

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

The Wrong Night

The Wrong Night
The Six
23 October 2006
The Spiegeltent

Review by Christina Cass

The Wrong Night presented by the roving comedy troupe, The Six, should have been passing out Pampers with the price of admission – for all the hilarious pant-wetting that ensued.

The Six have been playing around Melbourne for some time now, honing and toning their irreverent comedy, but for this packed one-night only show (sadly) at The Famous Spiegeltent, they roped in several guest comedians to polish off the evening with a more professional shine.

MC/Diva and Green Room Award nominee, Wes Snelling, was the stumbling, gin-swizzling Tina del Twiste. She kept the night rolling effortlessly with her velvet-dipped dagger wit and dress and book ended the show with two songs including a fabulous rendition of “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.”

Also performing were the highly entertaining Die Roten Punkte – a tongue-in-cheek brother/sister punk band from Germany; a sublime Geraldine Quinn who should never, ever be allowed to handle sharp objects while drinking and singing “Bitch with a Bone”; Wilson Dixon’s clever cowboy philosopher strumming “A Man with No Name,” and the cheeky Caravan of Love ladies.

The Six (Josh Cameron, Jon Peck, Mandy Mannion and Kate McLennan with guests Cara Mitchell and Bridget Bantick) scattered their sketch comedy between the guest acts and not always so successfully – Chastity Jane was sooooo wrong – but heck, that’s what the show was all about, The Wrong Night. Thankfully the overall wrongness was oh-so-right with the tone of the night; but next time, dear Six, book a longer run so Melbourne doesn’t blink and miss a delightfully mischievous evening.