Review - Te Whaea Theatre, Newtown: Triple Bill a trifecta of triumphant dance
Stephen Olsen
June 12, 2011
Triple Bill, the latest Touch Compass Dance Trust production, presented an elemental tour-de-force on its final day in
Wellington at the weekend, with the power of integrated dance shining through in a fluid marriage of human movement,
muscular choreography and musical composition.
The musicality of the three pieces – Suzanne Cowan’s Grotteschi, Jeremy Nelson’s Six and Russell Scoone’s Slip – was of particular note, and of equal credit to each piece’s respective
musical composer: Charlotte Rose, David Watson and Russell Scoones.
As an instance, the interludes of jaunty accordion in Grotteschi were attuned perfectly to the floorboard gypsy accents
performed by Cowan and fellow dancer Adrian Smith. The added lilt of pianola at one point underscored nothing less than
the feeling of a 3D silent movie, dramatically brought to a close with the black widow gesture played by Cowan in her
role as Ava the amazing spider woman.
The kinetic sound and sight of Six, initially felt in synch a Len Lye artwork. Cowan and Smith, joined by Daniel King, Julia Milsom, Catherine Chappell
and Alisha McLenna, turning into assonant clocklike cogs turning apiece in a tympanic assymetric. Again the shifts in
musical form made for a phonic complement and punctuation to the dance – the tones of a xylophone, the quiet jarring of
piano strings.
In this piece the dancers became apparatuses of some inner machination, a human calumny and keyboard of motion fading
into a sonic chamber.
With Kerryn McMurdo and Jesse Johnston-Steele joining the troupe, Slip – full title “Slip, I’m not falling, I’m just hanging on for as long as you hold me” – brought to Triple Bill its most
theatrical dimension.
In a controlled ensemble of bodies, clothing and wooden chairs (reminiscent of deck chairs and Samuel Beckett), a common
thread to this piece was the tangibility it gave to the unspoken nature of our changing mental states. Against a rising
background of classical bass drums and trumpets the audience became a mirror to a veritable ‘flight of the garments’, as
dancers rapidly moved to dress or undress themselves on a strewn laundry of troublesome choices
The lyrical dialogue and chemise-like rapport in Slip was made more manifest by the strong use of song to transition
from one state to the next. “Everything changes when one hand points up to the sky and one hand down to the ground”.
Through metaphors of perceptibly similar coats and a perceptibly escapable straitjacket, the dancers threw themselves
into a cosmic dissonance followed by strummed happiness, an inner war-drobe followed by an inner peace-drobe; ending in
an overall allure that even a restless bedtime repose can act as a synaptic salve or provide some form of emotional
rescue.
Triple Bill provides another testament to the collaborative creativity able to be mustered by Touch Compass, in staging
a production of layered meaning, a production capable of investing the qualities of each piece’s music and movement with
clarity, unison and an integration that all dance demands.
Dance is physicality. Dance is improvisation. Non-disabled or disabled. In Touch Compass the combined physicality and
improvisation of dance comes first, making any other distinctions meaningless.
A small quibble, for this reviewer was that deploying the dimmest possible lighting for long periods was a minor
detractor, when brighter spotlights could have added to the celebration of dance. The playing of timeless classical
music during breaks was at odds with the contemporary vibe of Triple Bill.
And one regret – on behalf of anyone with even the vaguest love for dance – was that this short and well publicised
season deserved to have a longer life on a larger stage.
Kia kaha Touch Compass!
ENDS