Fertile Ground | Ashleigh Musk and Michael Smith
Like two otherworldly beasts of burden, dancers Ashleigh Musk and Michael Smith enter the space. Crawling on all fours, eyes down, they balance besser blocks upon their backs, transporting the building materials of a new world into this otherworldly place. They take their time, weighed down by their load. So silent and smooth was their entrance that it takes some time for a number of us to realise the performance had begun.
The audience is seated on besser blocks dispersed throughout the stark, brutalist, concrete desert of a space. The performers slowly make their way through us to the centre of the room, immediately breaking the fourth wall. The soundscape begins to swell. Scratching, bristling, while strangely harmonic, the sonics fill our senses, aiding our transfer into this alien, yet oh-so familiar world.
By the time the performers have arrive at the centre of the room, the outside world has slipped away. My senses are tightly focused on the two. They rise in sync and transfer the blocks to their arms, caressing their tool of choice with the tenderness of a newborn. They begin to spin. Their rotations increasingly faster and wilder, the blocks threatening to flung across the room. You can cut the tension with a knife. I realise I’m holding my breathe.
Image: Jade Ellis
Welcome to Fertile Ground, a new contemporary dance work created by Ashleigh Musk and Michael Smith as a response to humankind’s relentless drive to tear down and rebuild their world in the pursuit of a paradise of their own making. Over the length of the performance Ashleigh and Michael create and destroy multiple worlds with the besser blocks scattered throughout the space. The blocks become a character themselves, as much as a tool. They guide them, separate them, are used as pathways to navigate space, create new worlds and even become what seems to be a crumbling throne at the end of everything.
Guided by dramaturg, Liesel Zink, they tell their stories through movements that span slow and deliberate to synchronous, to sporadic. I see creation, destruction, blind servitude, companionship and the rise and fall of humankind play out before by two dancers who showcase incredible control, freedom and creativity throughout. Everything is imbued with layers of meaning, including utilising the Auslan interpreter as the audience’s guide. Particularly memorable was Michael’s interpretation of David Ealeman’s ‘Descent of Species’, a warning of being careful of what you wish for, if there ever was one.
But they do not perform this piece alone. The dancers invite, cajole and even pleade with the audience to take part in the construction of the world at multiple times throughout the performance. With besser blocks involved, you can be guaranteed this isn’t your average audience participation. The interpreter guides us at times, showing us how we can contribute to the world being build around us. Not all audience members took up the offer play a part in the performance, but none of us could deny we had a role to play throughout. The wordless offers from the performers are deliberate, at times earnest or exhausted. We are invited to help them build the world around us, or let others do the work, but we have to decide our role.
For me, Michael and Ashleigh seemed to want us to take ownership of our role in the design of the world around us. Of our complicity in its creation. We can build it up, tear it down and make it beautiful. To acknowledge that we have that power, as much as we want to deny it. And what, I found myself wondering, is the ultimate impact of our relentless pursuit of an artificial paradise, when others will tear down what we’ve made in pursuit of their own?
Image: Jade Ellis
It is one of the best examples of immersing an audience into a piece I’ve seen in a long time, and I was mulling over this message long after the performance.
Anna Whitaker’s soundscape was the perfect addition to the piece and she proves once again that she’s a creative force to be reckoned with. Epic soundscapes seemed to be created from a single movement, such a scraping of one block upon another. Anna’s work of layering sounds from a point in the action and turning them into beautiful harmonics is always impressive and it only aided in taking Fertile Ground to another level.
As with most contemporary dance works, it was all open to our interruption. The layers of meaning, purposeful use of space and incorporation of the audience in Fertile Ground resonated with me far deeper than most contemporary dance works I’ve seen in recent time. I left the show with a new appreciation for the ambiguity, layers of meaning and multiplicity of interpretation that dance and physical theatre works can provide when they’re done well. Their ability to say things that words cannot. To set off your emotions, senses and memories and transport you to another place.
As I left show, I felt I had to walk home, so overcome with a desire to take in and be more cognisant of the urban jungle around me and my role within and contributing to it. It’s rare that I’ve been moved by a contemporary dance piece to this level. Kudos to the Fertile Ground team.
Fertile Ground is a powerful new work contemporary dance work that pushes the boundaries of what the form can achieve in all the best ways. With evocative imagery, creative use of space and a one of the best incorporation of the audience I’ve ever seen, it sets a high bar for other contemporary dance works to live up to. With Fertile Ground, Ashleigh Musk and Michael Smith solidify themselves as two performers to watch. Highly recommended.
