DANZ QUARTERLY - Issue No 9: October, November, December 2007

I want to dance better at parties by Chunky Move

Christchurch Festival of the Arts
James Hay Theatre, Christchurch Town Hall
3 August 2007

Reviewed by Anna Chapman

Five screens with the outline of a man and a name - Jack, Dimosthenis, Phillip, Lindsay and Franc, were the set for this performance.  The performers were introduced one at a time in vignettes of dialogue and dance, dancers on stage reproducing the dance of the characters, giving them dimension.

The characters developed their stories and themes.  Phillip’s story portrayed issues of loneliness, acceptance, and confidence.  In a fluid powerful dance set to a subtle soundtrack, the dancers deflated to limp inaction as they exhaled, pulled from the floor when they inhaled.

The intense discomfort of Franc at dancing in public was tangible as he appeared and reappeared, an uneasy still presence in the midst of movement.  His stillness was at times a perfect foil to the frenetic movement around him.

Lindsay’s story, about love found and lost through dance, was illustrated in a powerful duet that delivered perfect synchronization.  His loss, interpreted through percussive use of breath and step, referenced the clogging that had brought him to this place within a strong contemporary dance framework.

Jack had devised a means of notating dance as a means of capturing it.  In a sequence that showed the inability of words to fully capture the intent and execution of dance, comic elements referenced the machinations of Dr Coppelius.

Dimosthenis revelled in being the centre of attention - dance was a means of attracting attention.  His hard-core clubbing was frenetically portrayed in an intricate and physical piece of choreography.  There was a sense of recognition of the dance vocabulary used, throwing, pushing, collision, running, recovery.

The piece built slowly and by stages prepared the audience for the deeper exploration of the characters lives.  The Jewish and Greek dances, and clogging, were skillfully incorporated with no sense of disconnection. 

Multi media elements were skillfully crafted and used to enhance the audience’s connection with the dance, and to advance the narrative.

The work rate demanded of these dancers was at times huge.  The physicality of the inhale/exhale segment, the duet and the clubbing sequence, was demanding and these were executed effortlessly. 

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