DANZ QUARTERLY No 5 September 2006

Black Milk in Retrospect

by Raewyn Whyte

Douglas Wright’s Black Milk has been seen throughout New Zealand, and in Sydney, and has been justly acclaimed as a great work of art - in its scope, its vision, its execution, for its stellar cast and creative team, superb dancing and beautifully effective design and music - and for drawing our attention to the enduring value of the human spirit in the face of brutal indignities.

This particular work of art provoked endless discussion amongst its audiences, with perspectives ranging from exhilarated, stunned, and blown-away, to distressed, nonplussed, uncomprehending, and resentful. But nobody lacked a personal response, and post-show discussion ran on for weeks afterwards. There was often heated and critically informed debate among dance aficionados about such matters as: the sources and structuring of movement; the impact of long sections of gestural dialogue; the balance of solos and duets and trios versus ensemble work, whether there was enough dancing overall.

Topics which raised the most heat were the quantity and dominance of words/text/narrative from the Ventriloquist and the Dummy relative to the danced sections; the inclusion of explicit warnings about the content and injunctions about how we should respond to it; the quantity of violent, dark and degrading scenes compared to scenes more joyous, calm or with positive outcomes; the way the work’s structure made its audience complicit in abuse; the distancing effect of the theatrical design; whether or not the Dummy’s voice was appropriate, and ambivalence about the overwhelming publicity which made it clear that Black Milk was the therapeutic outcome of the choreographer’s recovery from a recent suicide attempt.

Taken in context with previous Wright works, Black Milk can be seen as extending earlier approaches and developments in logical directions. IIluminating solos, duets and trios performed with consummate mastery are of course a Wright hallmark, and all his previous works have included stunning cameos of the kind included here. (Indeed, it was a delight to see some of those earlier cameos returning as quotations). The inclusion of dark and violent material is not new in Wright’s work, either - Now is the Hour (1988), How On Earth (1989) and As It Is (1991) included segments which drew attention to social inequities and the barbarity with which we treat our animals in New Zealand; and in Black Milk the perspective is extended to include the whole world.

The emphasis on theatricality is of course not new - it is another Wright hallmark and a key to the success of his evening length works. The emphasis on text and narrative, and the alternating structure which juxtaposed segments with the Ventriloquist and Dummy against segments with dancing and segments in which symbolic and ritual material dominate, further extends the proportionality achieved in Inland, though without the kind of emotional balance that work achieved. And while previous works have focused on a single theme and through-line with multiple stories glimpsed in passing, Black Milk is more narratively complex; an anthology of short-short stories more completely told, counter-posed to the narrative of the Ventriloquist and the Dummy, and tucked inside a meta-narrative in which the Ventriloquist returns to the womb via suicide.

Where next will Wright take us?

Return to Contents page of DANZ QUARTERLY N0 5 September 2006