DANZ QUARTERLY Issue 17
October, November, December 2009
REVIEW
Left and Right
Spinning Sun
Ann Dewey
TAPAC
April 2009
Reviewed by Jack Gray
A girl (Marinkovich), the ‘Knitter’, sits looping strands of wool around her wrists, against white bedraggled scarves tasselled over a screen. A white curtain from Dewey’s choreography (Flicker) cascades across the back. Stark workers on and jazzy music playing, a little bit of old and a little bit of new, the scene is set for Left and Right.
Voices gabble in hushed tones as a four-panelled set is wheeled sideways, forwards and back to rhythmic music (Charlotte Rose). A green woollen girl (Van Renen) creeps out, while a blonde (Baron) in purple knit, rolls on the floor. Liz Kirk appears in a lavender cardie and grey pants alongside a caramel jerseyed male (Gilson).
Dancing to the beat, bodies upright, turning, standing and moving, we see cannon patterns, intersplicing, and idiosyncratic hand gestures. They entwine around each other in linear and quirky combinations, spirals and kicks.
Everything in the space is brightly lit, though the dancers themselves seem a bit exposed.
Baron reappears in woollen blue shorts in a new lighting state as the screen slides centre stage. This transitional device is set up and used consistently throughout.
Wearing muted woollen costumes, a trio is performed holding, shifting and tension to whispers of ‘knobbly-bobbly bits’. A solo by Gilson conjures up thoughts of old man britches.
Three girls slide on socks or their backs from behind the set to a series of exhalations. The dancers do some strange, slidey sideways steps and push themselves around in slippery down-dog fashion.
But who is the ‘Knitter’ and why does she appear and reappear randomly? Later she performs a dance solo, changing our expectations of her as a passive bystander.
A veritable patchwork of ideas follow; a duet between cardie and scarf, the sound of machinery, a funky hip hopish-style solo, group photo-style poses ranging from ugly, crazy, normal to pretty and a rapidly revolving set with partitions like separate rooms.
Gilson appears with a giant spool of green wool and a strange outfit made of knitted leaves. His comedic mime evokes a clashing hybrid of curious images, either creature/plant-like or a cross between Robin Hood and Peter Pan.
Rolling up a panel of the set makes a doorway/window, showing the ‘Knitter’ in a corset/sash that is slowly unravelled into threads of blue and red wool, spaghetti strewn over two lying bodies. It is an open-ended finish that leaves ambiguous threads.
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