Three | ADC
Three. A tryptic of works, gathered together, alike and yet not.
It was an interesting conception for a show. Somewhere on the line between three premiere works, and a full-length feature, the ADC ensemble performed three works back-to-back. Each had a different choreographer, differing conceptions for costuming, and a different meaning, a different purpose even. Yet the three were also matched by the being performed by the same ensemble, with a similar palette of lighting, blurring the distinction between them. As a concept for building a full-length performance it had merit, but in practice it was a bit pummelling.
Image + cover image: David Kelly
I struggled with the first piece, Alterum. The promise of the powerful opening piece failed to materialise throughout the rest of the dance. It contained little storytelling, and was hard to determine the symbolism. It had a specious description in program which read much like a thousand descriptions before, the eternal struggle between isolation and connection, the age-old quest to “reach beyond the limits of our bodies whilst seeking to maintain the primal instincts of connection, protection, intimacy and desire.” I felt quite strongly that if you are going to go after one of the big themes, one of the classics, then it really needs a big statement, or an utterly new approach. It’s hard to really connect to a very big theme without a deeply powerful personal connection, and in a circumstance like this it is watered down from the choreographer to the performers to the audience. It lacks the personality of a personal cause and makes it hard to grab onto this giant meaning. Anyway, in the absence of symbolism and narrative, we seek pure aesthetic pleasure, and it was not quite on cue enough to give me that either, with the groups often moving around the rhythm on mildly different beats, and absolute zero change of movement tempo no matter how much the emotive nature of the music changed. This group of supremely fit young people move well with strange fluid undulations and unusual shapes, but I found this one too obscure.
Image: David Kelly
Part two was Still Life choregraphed by ensemble member Jack Lister. A simple enough concept, and a beautiful one. In this I found myself reflecting on the nature of art, in the way a painting or photograph is in essence a captured moment of time. But encapsulated within the still life are deep running waters; no moment of time can exist without all the time before and all the time to come. No photograph of a lover exists without many sleepless nights. No painting of a flower exists without picking the flowers, and waiting for them to rot. This piece made me think of a painting in motion, being able to see into the time that it took in the creation of a painting or suchlike.
The pas de deux of the wind between Lonii Garnons-Williams and Tyrel Dulvarie was truly one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Garnons-Williams had me in mind of a fae spirit, halfway between playful and vengeful. Dulvarie was harried before the tempest as men are wont to dance on the command of elves. They captured wind so exquisitely, the timing and lightness was superb. I could see every eddy, every tiny zephyr, and the kinaesthetic response between the two was flawless.
I also enjoyed the violence of the dance of the flower with Chase Clegg-Robinson. The weirdness, the sense of something not quite right, a shaking and a dismembered distress, before being dragged into the dark unseen.
An absolutely exquisite prop that had Jack Lister literally smoking felt like a missed opportunity. I saw a man on fire, with all the enormous potential of what that might mean, in a world where many men burn and so many meanings could be layered onto this idea, but his movements were understated for the enormity of the image.
The duet between Josephine Weise and Jag Popham was full of juxtaposition. Compassion and boredom, jealousy and security. Weise manhandled Jag’s submissive body with real tenderness. Her control of Popham, with huge glazed eyes, had me in mind of something Black Mirror-esque, a future universe where love exists but not as we know it. The unexpected lift where she crouched on his back was striking, and stays clearly on in my minds eye. And the creeping loss of control until she too was rendered passive, struck me as numb and desperate and acquiescence and hollowness all at once.
Strange wild vibes here, and this centrepiece was definitely the highlight of the evening for me.
Image: David Kelly
The third piece Cult, presented a chorography and musical score from a 2004 piece from Hofesh Shechter. The costuming of brown suit jackets for the men and vibrant red dresses for the women set the scene as a critique of capitalism and the roles it forces us to play, albeit a pejorative and old-fashioned perspective of women especially. The movement was fast, light, frenetic. Strong tones of apocalypse, with the literal call to action, “Something to fight for, something to live for, something to die for.” But we were not told what it was that was worth living and dying for. And it felt like a statement, not a question, so I was left searching for the intent. The stage lighting was superb, with dancers moving into the light as an ensemble, then fading away as one as highlighted in the foreground.
It was a strange pairing of works. Each ostensibly separate, yet invariably linked. They were developed as individuals but when performed as a tryptich, by the same artists, and lit in similar fashion, it is impossible to truly separatee the three. There were exquisite moments within this production laid up against strange long scenes that were lacking clear narrative. What remains afterwards in my mind is a cacophony of ideas and movements and a cluster of disjointed moments that don’t quite connect, but cannot be loose from each other either.
