2 weeks Ago By Andrew Fuhrmann, Barney Zwartz
DANCE Horizon, Bangarra Dance Theatre ★★★★ Arts Centre Melbourne, until September 7 This triple bill of new works is a tour from horizon to horizon, from the islands of the Torres Strait to Lake Taupo in New Zealand, featuring commissions by Sani Townson, Deborah Brown and Maori artist Moss Te Ururangi Patterson. Choreographer Deborah Brown with dancers Amber Gordan, left, and Courtney Radford, right at a dress rehearsal ahead of Horizon. Credit: Eddie Jim The evening begins with Kulka by Townson, a work reflecting on totem lore and the cultural heritage of Saibai Island.
It has a busy, aerobic rhythm, with frequent group unison passages where simple lifts with trailing blue skirts recall rolling waves. Townson’s choreography is complemented by – and sometimes in competition with – elaborate video designs projected onto the floor and reflected in a huge mirror. It’s a device that works best in the section dedicated to Koedalaw Awgadh, the crocodile god.
Brown also connects her piece, Salt Water , with the island culture of the Torres Strait. She focuses particularly on the western island of Badu and eastern island of Mer, from which she traces her ancestral lineage. Like Townson’s piece, Salt Water has a steady, bustling energy.
The highlight is its evocation of a submerged reef. Contorted bodies create an underwater vista, while small, jerky movements of the hands suggest the brittleness of coral skeletons. A scene from The Light Inside as part of Horizon.
Credit: Daniel Boud The last section is a quicksilver solo by Lillian Banks in an eye-catching spangled costume designed by Jennifer Irwin: rapid pulsations in the arms and shoulders, bending and shifting, bring to mind the shimmer and flicker of a particularly bright star. Moss Te Ururangi Patterson’s contribution, which takes inspiration from Maori spiritual traditions, is called Fresh Water : a companion piece to Brown’s Salt Water and part of a larger collaborative project called The Light Inside . Patterson, who is the artistic director of New Zealand Dance Company, creates a number of special challenges for the Bangarra ensemble, placing a traditional haka in one of the sections and deploying forceful upper-body movements throughout.
Patterson’s choreography requires a level of concentration and intensity which the ensemble – with the notable exception of Kallum Goolagong – does not always achieve. And yet Fresh Water is still the most exciting of the three pieces because of its shadowy atmosphere and innovative use of tableaux. Emily Flannery, Jye Uren and Chantelle Lee Lockhart in a fable about magic hair.
Credit: Daniel Boud The appearance of Emily Flannery, Chantelle Lee Lockhart and Jye Uren as sacred feminine presences in a representation of a fable about magic hair is particularly memorable. While Horizon may not be as immersive or as consistently affecting as other Bangarra productions, as an expression of solidarity with the First Peoples of the Oceania region it nonetheless represents an important enlargement of the company’s core mission – and a new artistic frontier. Reviewed by Andrew Fuhrmann MUSIC Faure’s Requiem ★★★★ Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Hamer Hall, August 29 The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra laid aside the managerial travails of the past fortnight , culminating in the departure this week of managing director Sophie Galaise , with a sumptuous performance of Gabriel Faure’s Requiem at Hamer Hall on Thursday.
Conductor Lawrence Renes had clearly worked hard on balancing all the forces within orchestra and choir. Credit: Laura Manariti Unlike Mozart’s dramatic Requiem or Verdi’s virtuosic, operatic version, Faure’s Requiem is sober, calm and serenely beautiful, and it received a deeply moving performance. It is a great showcase for the excellent MSO Chorus in total command under Warren Trevelyan-Jones, while conductor Lawrence Renes had clearly worked hard on balancing all the forces within orchestra and choir.
There are two soloists, soprano and baritone, but they sing for a total of about four minutes each, so it was luxury casting in the extreme to have Siobhan Stagg and Roderick Williams on stage. Melbourne-raised Stagg, who is establishing a spectacular international career, sang Pie Jesu , the movement most often extracted from the work for recitals. Shut your eyes – or, indeed, open them – and it could have been an angel, such was her tender purity.
Williams was sweet-toned and heroic. Unlike Mozart’s dramatic Requiem or Verdi’s operatic version, Faure’s Requiem is sober, calm and serenely beautiful. Credit: Laura Manariti The concert was marred, as it is whenever an organ is required, by the small “pop-up toaster” (valiantly played by Andrew Bainbridge) that is the only option, instead of the majestic built-in instrument an orchestra like the MSO and the city’s main concert hall demand.
Arts Centre management removed the organ when the hall was refurbished a decade ago , and simply refuse to replace it. An oddity for the Faure was an arrangement of the orchestra new to me: violas on the left, switching with the first violins, cellos in the middle, and double basses divided between the two wings. The reason, according to the MSO, is that the violins have a minor role in this work – there are two viola and two cello sections, but only one violin section.
Principal violist Christopher Moore was thus concertmaster for this work. Before the interval were Sibelius’ mysterious, elemental seventh symphony – his last, though he lived another 33 years – and Mythic by much-loved Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin. Mythic , a subtle work of some substance, is described by the composer as “a kind of hymn with variations”.
Scott Kinmont shone in the demanding trombone obbligato in the Sibelius, where Renes showed again his fine sense of shape and architecture. Reviewed by Barney Zwartz The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from books editor Jason Steger. Get it every Friday .
.
