Left to the Edge by State of Flux with Nancy Stark Smith and
Ode to Summer by Jennifer Monson
Felicity MacDonald
Gravity, momentum, inertia,
weight, humanness, being, playing.
Flux had been working with Nancy for the previous three weeks intensively. The
performances took place at Studio One at the VCA. The same venue in which Steve
Paxton performed with Lisa Nelson some 15 years ago. (Paxton made the seminal
contact work Magnesium in1972 and is credited with having developed contact
improvisation along with Nancy Stark Smith and others.) left (to the edge) was
framed in a theatrical setting interestingly, not the so named studio. The stage
was ‘set’ with blacks and theatrical lighting, the audience in comfortably
raked seating. A musical prologue by Mike Vargas gave the audience the opportunity
to arrive into audienceness. Listening to both the sound and the space between
the sounds, I was reminded of Zen notions of emptiness.
The dancing begins with all the dancers, David Corbet, Wendy Smith, Jacob Lehrer,
Janice Florence, Martin Hughes and Nancy. They run through the space with elegance
and ease. They end up lying on the floor in a variety of individual explorations
which were somewhere between warm up exercise and a revelation of bodiliness.
The ensemble resolved into a series of duets, trios and solos, movement equivalents
of Lewis Carol’s tangles and knots. At times the level of problem solving
was ostensible and the virtuosity of the dancers breathtaking. The audience
responded with gasps and giggles, as they were totally engrossed with all that
was going on. It seemed as if the audience was listening to the dance in much
the same way as an audience listens to a concerto. Each dip and dive not requiring
justification but part of the ebb and flow of the presentation. At one point
a huge mirror behind the dancers was revealed to startling effect. Seeing the
dance simultaneously from the front and back was fun.
It seemed that the dancers were intent on showing contact in its purity, avoiding
both the performers mask and the blank expression that so often accompanies
such intense concentration. This is testament to the years that Flux have been
dancing and performing together. This performance was particularly free from
earlier Flux performances that were more mediated by personality and attitude
of the dancers. Working with Nancy has perhaps given Flux more confidence to
allow the dance to speak for itself, to trust the inherently funny and poetic
body. Janice Florence performed a solo in the final moments of Left (to the
edge), which left me with a lasting image of each joint articulation and shift
of weight as conscious as any poem.
Jennifer Monson’s
performance a week earlier had a political edge. She ran screaming into the
room midst the noise of smashing glass. She rolled on the ground with what at
first seemed like a lot of padding but subsequently was revealed to be many
t-shirts she was wearing. The subsequent removal of each was like the removal
of layers peeling back to the kernel, an autobiography of t-shirts. She talked
to the audience and then lost herself in spontaneous dancing that was boisterous
and ‘out there’. It was such a relief to see a dancer as a person
in a social/political landscape who was not afraid to be both naked and somehow
unmediated by the male gaze. She flirted with danger, not with the audience.
She allowed herself to be seen in ‘unflattering’ ways, which brought
to my mind the very narrow aesthetic channel through which most new dance works
are squeezed. It is good to be reminded of the fuck everybody feminist agenda
of the’70s “I’m gonna be me whether you like it or not and by
the way I’m not available sexually”. I am filled with admiration for
the bravery, rawness and inyourface qualities of Ode to Summer.In the broader
landscape of dance in Melbourne, many choreographed works are overwrought, presenting
the dancers bodies as fragmented, almost mechanistic in the way they articulate.
I am always amazed at the choreographic invention but still find myself yearning
for something more than physical manifestations of clever good taste. Maybe
it’s the climate of having to sell dance that makes it conform to a sort
of corporate slickness. Or on the other hand conform to the audience’s
expectation for narrative. DANCE FOR THE SAKE OF IT! I say.
It has been a great end to 2000 to witness these two great offerings by those
improvisers who present an alternative ‘take’ on being in the world.
vol 6 ed 1 - ed 2 - ed 3&4 - 2003 vol 5 ed 1 - ed 2 - ed 3 - ed 4 - 2002 vol 4 ed 1 - ed 2 - ed 3 - ed 4 - 2001 vol 3 ed 1 - ed 2 - ed 3 - ed 4 - 2000 vol 2 ed 1 - ed 2 - ed 3 - ed 4 - 1999 vol 1 ed 1 - ed 2 - ed 3 - ed 4 - 1998 |
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