Adelaide Festival. Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet. Festival Theatre. 6 Mar 2015
The stage is shrouded in pitch black darkness as the dancers of the Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, illuminated only by shafts of light, open their Adelaide Festival season performance of Mixed Rep to an almost full house. They are as light as a feather and as soft as a cloud. Leaping gracefully into the air they land without a sound.
The first of three pieces, choreographed by European, Jiří Kylián, is called Indigo Rose. The pace is frenetic, at times playful and always youthful. We open with first once dancer, then two and eventually three bouncing off each other with frantic energy. The sound track is metronomic. The playfulness in sync with one’s beating heart. There are slower, more lyrical, sections in which couples tussle and cavort. A high energy collaboration between the dancers and a huge white fabric sail allows for silhouette work and visual metaphors of sinking tides and crashing waves. It is spectacular, but disjointed. The sections don’t seem to have a commonality or linking thread. The concluding video projection adds little.
Ten Duets on a Theme of Rescue, with choreography by North American, Crystal Pite, is up next. A somewhat calming composition, it evokes images of what earth might sound like if it had a song. The music underscores paradoxically energetic choreography which is hugely evocative. There is urgency, danger, jarring and angular movement not dissimilar to a person having a fit or episode. One is completely drawn in by the work; eyes sting from lack of blinking through immense concentration. The setting, like an open mine or night works in a field evokes a literal theme of ‘rescue’. But is this rescue metaphorical? Like an exorcism of one’s demons, salvation from the mind, or emotional rescue from a damaging relationship. It is visually stunning.
The third and final piece is entitled Violet Kid, and has choreography and music by Israeli (now UK based) Hofesh Shechter. It opens with 14 dancers standing across the front of the stage. They are perfectly still. The recorded voice of Shechter himself comes over the speakers, asking “Do I talk too much? Maybe if I didn’t talk so much, I’d have more friends”. The audience enjoy the irony as he goes on. What follows are tribal and almost ritualistic vignettes as the dancers move separately, in groups and then all together, like a living, breathing, organism. The soundscape, a dense instrumentation of strings and drums penetrates your whole being. One feels their breath sitting high in their chest and the overwhelming need to grab a hold of something. For a full 34 minutes the company ebbs and flows through rising levels of intensity. The stage is vast, like an abandoned warehouse. Shafts of light cut through a dense haze as the rituals continue in repetitive succession. It is uncomfortable, but you can’t take your eyes off it. There are themes of a post-apocalyptic struggle bubbling under the surface.
And it ends. The audience leap to their feet for a standing ovation as the dancers take their third and final bow of the performance. It is a tight race between the evocative Ten Duets.. and the arresting Violet Kid. But there is no doubt about Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet. They are the real stars. And we are the real winners.
Paul Rodda
When: 6 to 8 Mar
Where: Adelaide Festival Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
