À Fleur de Peau. Adelaide Oval. Adelaide Festival. 28 Feb 16
Groupe F’s montrer son et lumière (sound and light show) for their return to the 2016 Adelaide Festival is entitled À Fleur de Peau, which translates to ‘On Edge’.
It is quite literally the case as our senses are bombarded by a spectacular display of fireworks, lights, and flame accompanied by an earthly and soulful ballad which underscores the performance.
It is a remarkable production.
A large screen, atop which sits a stage, is vividly lit with strips of light that dance to a thumping beat, cutting through one's skull and penetrating the very mind. Out of the relentless beat and vividly electric, conductive lighting a man appears to be born. One’s brain is blitzed as the pervasive rhythm continues, mimicking a beating heart – it borders on unpleasant.
A kind of rebirth is given to our senses.
And then there is silence.
Appearing atop the stage our performer, shaped only by the dotted LEDs that cover and define the outline of his person, begins a kind of journey; marching in time as projections of natural elements cascade below him. There is a spectacular kind of visual movement; a trick of the eye which makes one believe he is walking towards us.
Projections of earthly textures cycle below on the enormous screen; lava from a freshly erupted volcano; feathers of a peacock; the petals of flower; skin of a snake; springs of steel; green grass; orange sand; burnt terrain.
One is drawn onto the question of the relationship between the two; the individual and the textures of our planet. The work has been described as a “telluric ballad”, telluric literally translating to “of the earth as a planet, of the soil” the distinction between the man, the music, and the imagery grows ever clearer.
Fire is introduced, like an element to be controlled. And yet it also consumes us. Are we more connected to it than we know?
Oversize humanoid puppets – stick people – are set alight. They glow with varying colours of flame; green, blue, yellow, and red. Interacting like newborns in a mesmerising dance.
The intensity begins to increase for the first of many times. Flames burst forth from all over the stage shooting into the air in a timed display of light, power, and sheer heat.
One feels the intensity on the skin.
As the earthly substances melt away we are transported into space. The LED lit performers are hoisted into the sky by a concealed crane. They render up control of their bodies to the weightlessness of space. Galaxies of stars roll beneath on the screen. The sky is filled with slowly cascading embers from freshly fired fireworks; they light the night sky with hundreds of falling stars.
Outwardly the spectacle pushes more and more boundaries. One’s senses continue to be stretched and cajoled. Performers are suspended from flaming boxes; encompassed in spinning wheels of sparks and flares; they play out a battle of fire and light; it all peaks in a display of almighty flame and fireworks.
Groupe F describe the work as a “dazzling tale [which] addresses the complex relationship between man and his environment… the gradual transformation of a sensitive area is generated by a dual relationship between the individual and his living space…” It asks us to think not just on what is accessible to our senses in terms of sight, sound, and touch – but to consider what complex reaction we have to that deep down.
It is ironic then that so many of the audience remained disconnected from the work behind their iPhones or electronic devices.
In a display of sheer ignorance, many of those in attendance appeared to completely neglect any chance at immersion in the moment, choosing instead to record their interaction with the work like a third person onlooker.
This makes one think even deeper on what the performance is trying to say about our individual relationships with the world around us, and how technology and social online media has changed that.
One is then further saddened by the perpetuation of that ignorance online the following day.
It cannot go without comment.
Art is a vehicle for connecting to, and relating with, our souls and the will and expression of everything and everyone around us.
Groupe F’s, À Fleur de Peau is a 55 minute show.
I implore everyone to shut it down for an hour. Leave the technology behind. Don’t speak; there is time for that later. Live in the moment while you have the moments in which to live.
The performance was for one night only and sold-out. So if you didn’t see it you have sadly missed out this time. But if you do get a chance to see a work like this… don’t miss out next time, by being there and not being present.
Paul Rodda
When: 27 Feb
Where: Adelaide Oval
Bookings: Closed
Friday. Adelaide Festival. 26 Feb 2016
Sequencing sound within sequenced sound, vision and sensation best describes the extraordinary technical and musical synthesis of work offered up at Unsound on Friday night, a night of playing with possibilities theatrical, technical, tactile and physical.
Anyone with a love for work by Kraftwerk, Gary Numan, The Coctueau Twins let alone industrial techno pioneer Blixa Bargeld with Einstürzende Neubauten would have instantly grasped this essential basis not only to the evening’s program, but particularly the dark, classically inclined, majestic, thunderously impassioned glory SUMS: Kanding Ray and Barry Burns, drenched the audience in.
Merlin Ettore joined Barry Burns (UK) and Kanding Ray (France) on drums, and contra bassist Robert Lucaciu.
The soundscapes created by these artists included blending electronic instruments, amplified cello, violin, separate foot pedals, sequenced drum and percussion.
Kanding Ray, standing stage centre, headphones affixed firmly with back purposefully arched over a mixing board, added another layer of sequencing to each musician’s contribution.
The hour of sonorous, deep, thundering swirls of Ettore’s sweat drenched drumming, Lucaciu’s heart stripping cello, Burns’ luscious keyboard and guitar notes ebbed and flowed with power roaring through one’s whole body from the floor, the complete output being totally controlled by Kanding Ray, as much as the work was obviously a deeply immersive collaboration by the musicians.
It could have been music for Vikings, songs of long lost gods, but most of all, it was a long, profoundly affecting anthem to that constantly unfolding musical evolution in which ways of the past meet ways of the future in expressing something beyond the conventional.
Babyfather’s Dean Hunt (UK) switched the groove to theatrical and playful, filling the Thebby thick with stage smoke and a bright wide wash of white light. Here was an act ready to have serious fun mixing up cultural styles and playing games with the physical impact projecting sound and volume can have not just on an audience physically, but intellectually as well; a full on effort to reach as close to a three dimensional sense of sound a vision as possible.
Musically, the set cycled in a loop from bouncing Asian influenced beats and calls, ripped up dub variations, all the way around to the start again, making you think time and again about what you heard. Those dub variations give way to a sonic rumble in the mix that is quite a surprise.
For some, it seemed passé, for others more open minded to the experience, there was definitely a sense of the sound moving beyond its base musical note role; offering that ‘something more’ experience we always seek.
On the visual side of things, work from Jlin (US) and Kode9 (UK) really showed off what it means to mix contemporary sound, vision and movement.
Jlin’s blend of Footwork, flowing video graphics and use of live spice scents was deeply appreciated by the audience. Her physical presence, her moves, the flow of projected visual imagery - it was the most danced to work of the night; so dark, calming, rich and velvet in tonal sensation. Each phase break musically was so clean, but for the visuals, it almost didn’t register.
Kode9’s dystopian live audiovisual presentation amazed and shocked. The visuals based on their album Nøthing took the audience on a live tour of an evacuated, fully automated luxury hotel, ‘Nøtel’. This void built on nothing is crisp, chilling. While musically, it’s a deep, full throttle dance friendly experience many embraced.
The intellectual clash of sound and vision could be taken in a dark and serious manner or the dark subject matter referred to in passing, then just dance.
David O’Brien
When: 26 & 27 February
Where: Thebarton Theatre
Bookings: Closed
Australian Dance Theatre. 27 Feb 2016
Habitus presents as a thoroughly entertaining, richly comic work of fantastical, thought provoking dimensions.
It delves into the strange way we seem contentedly hostage to a materially constructed ‘natural’ world of consumerism, material comforts and associated rituals and rules unconsciously prioritised over anything else, without paying much attention to the actual nature of real nature.
Choreographer/Director Garry Stewart’s program note announces Habitus as the first in a series of new works falling under the title The Nature Series which will delve into the big issue of the century; how we relate to nature, how we care for the planet.
This long term discussion begins with the domestic world we inhabit.
With remarkable surrealistic finesse marrying Designer Gaelle Mellis’ set and costumes, Damien Cooper’s starkly bold cinematic lighting, and Stewart’s rich anthropologically informed palette of moves, Habitus does a magnificent job focusing on how our ‘natural’ world operates, as opposed to how real nature actually is.
Mellis’ colour scheme to the design operates as a key element in successfully getting complex issues across. It’s all about blue. What’s blue? The sky, water, air.
Habitus begins with hard core blue. Blue, in this production, are all the things that are not natural; manufactured clothes, underwear, shoes, hardback books, furniture and ironing boards. Dancers in Smurf shade blue socks have nothing to do with actual nature. But they make you think about it!
What about green, the other obvious signifier of the natural world, you might ask. It certainly makes an appearance. Before green makes its ultimate impact on the production, Habitus powers right into a magnificent series of taut, mechanistic yet gleefully playful routines tying together things obvious in a manner set to make us think about them again.
What we wear, how we handle clothing, the obsession with working out, the importance of utilitarian things such as ironing boards, couches and especially, books (nature’s trees are despoiled as to create a means to hold and disseminate knowledge and rules of social order) get a thorough going over.
Stewart’s choreography comprises a fast, crystal clear perfect series of ordinary day to day moves hyper realised against the bare space with maximum effect for comedy where required. You wonder when the natural world will fight back. It just doesn’t seem to exist.
Central to the success of the work is the thinking behind the book’s role in Habitus as the ultimate tool of rule over the plainly non-natural world. How books are physically organised, worshiped and exchanged is deftly explored with especial focus on how the book over time since its invention, as opposed to the seasons of nature, has more and more determined nurture of the ‘unnatural’ than nature. Book dances and couch dances are magnificent choreographic creations.
The ADT ensemble have an absolute ball dancing Habitus, not to mention a bit of acting and lines of text linking through the work and especially, fantastic comic work from Thomas Bradley, Thomas Gundry Greenfield, Samantha Hines, Michael Ramsay and Loni-Garnons Williams.
David O’Brien
When: 26 February to 5 March
Where: Space Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
Slingsby in association with Adelaide Festival of Arts 2016. 5th Floor Myer Centre (formerly Dazzleland). 27 Feb 2016
Oh, Slingsby, you've done it again! Currently lead by artistic director Andy Packer and executive producer Jodi Glass, the South Australian Slingsby theatre production company has toured numerous works to forty-three cities, including performances on Broadway.
In this world premiere, you meet the King's staff on the ground floor of the shopping palace and are transported in his personal elevator to the workshop - follow the advice you receive after purchasing your ticket through BASS which is come a half-hour earlier. You can't meet a king and present coronation gifts looking like a frump or a hobo!
The King is an extremely pleasant fellow played affably by Tim Overton. Ably assisted by Jacqy Phillips who plays a myriad of characters, and on the eve of the King's coronation, together they tell the tale of the old king's grandson, brought back from poverty and banishment, to be crowned the next day. The young king has ordered the finest robes, scepter and crown for the occasion but three well-illustrated dreams bring a change of heart. The story is of absolute relevance today.
Oscar Wilde's short story - dramatised for the stage by Adelaide's Nicki Bloom - is given the kiss of life through director Andy Packer's application of theatrical magic. Geoff Cobham's lighting is minimalist, playful and inventive; eg. The use of shadow play and hand-held torches. Composer Quincy Grant entices a delightful score from the piano, and you are in the court of the King, in a kingdom of citizen artisans, miners, and tree-fellers, you incorporeally haunt a palace, a hovel and forests, and I haven't yet described the poignant imagery of the dreams. Yet in the opening scenes, the young king is such a nice guy, his avarice for fine things is dulled. This is no Scrooge-like transformation. And the final imagery of transformation was rushed and not well established.
Don't leave sans une programme with the whole story published within. Bravo, Slingsby!
David Grybowski
When: 27 Feb to 19 Mar
Where: 5th Floor Myer Centre (formerly Dazzleland)
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
Erth. Norwood Concert Hall. 27 Feb 2016
The kids will love this. I was interested in dinosaurs since I was a young'un - I learned all their names and went to the museum myself on Saturday morning to look at their skeletons. So I loved it. Parents will love it.
Australian designer and creator Scott Wright knows his audience too well and winds them at the beginning of the show to their delight, starting with dinos in nappies and promising to bring out the big dinos later. While the show has been around for some time, what's on offer in the Festival is the version developed for Broadway. You will see the same show that Alicia Keys, Jerry Seinfeld and Sarah Jessica Parker and their kids enjoyed in The Big Apple. Up until that point, Wright's original show was true dinky-di, sporting only Australian dinosaurs, but now the world favourites are included, like triceratops and T.rex.
Wright advocates responsible behaviour around dinosaurs. Useful information is eased in even as the kids squeal in delight. Some lucky kids (very helpful to sit near the front) get on stage to pet the baby critters after some brief instruction useful to dealing with any pet. Lots of quasi-scary and fun audience participation as well. And anyone who has been to Cape Otway Lighthouse will be delighted to confront a couple of emu-size Laeallynasaura that were discovered nearby in Dinosaur Cove.
The engine room of the show is the technology of the puppets, the largest whole creatures are larger than SUVs, and there were two of them. And golly gosh, don't they look real! Their skin, their growl, head and jaw operations and the way the puppeteers manipulate large body movements. They are curious and intelligent. We don't see wild dinosaurs, we see very large pets.
I would have sworn Wright promised a dinosaur that would be capable of eating the seven bales of hay that were on stage in one go, so while a 'five-year old' juvenile T.rex was produced, I thought there would be a big surprise at the end of the show with a giant. No such luck.
Erth's Dinosaur Zoo is the next best thing to being in the Cretaceous, even better, because your toddler would have been the meal, not the master, of these magnificent and skillfully operated avatars.
P.S. See the article on Erth and their show in The Weekend Australian Review February 27-28, 2016.
David Grybowski
When: 27 Feb to 6 Mar
Where: Norwood Concert Hall
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au