 |
| Sara Black and Alison Plevey perform "The Dataset" |
Co-Directed,
and performed by Alison Plevey and Sara Black
Sound Design
by Sia Ahmad – Lighting and Production by Jordan Hodge
The Vault,
Dairy Road Precinct, Canberra. 27th to 29th June 2024.
Opening
night performance on 27th June reviewed by BILL STEPHENS.
Sara Black in "The Dataset"
Australian
Dance Party is a professional dance company established in 2015 by WAAPA
graduate dancer and choreographer, Alison Plevey, specifically to create
site-specific dance works exploring environmental issues through the medium of
dance.
Plevey and
her company have won many awards and accolades for her creations which continue
to subversively prick consciences and raise awareness.
For The Dataset Plevey has collaborated with
VCA graduate dance maker, Sara Black, independent sound designer, Sia Ahmad and
event organiser and technician, Jordan Hodge, to create a powerful expose of
how the collection of data is infiltrating our daily lives. For this purpose
they could hardly have chosen a more appropriate venue.
 |
| Alison Plevey in "The Dataset". |
The Vault is
a huge pillar-free concrete bunker that is now re-emerging as an exciting new special
events venue in the Canberra industrial area. It provided the perfect
environment for an unsettling surreal work imagining a future where data is
deeply centred into everything we do.
For the
purposes of this work The Vault became a rejuvenation centre, the latest
facility for Biomet, a data capture, analysis and transfer operation that
invites clients to experience the best in data-led living.
Once through
the rather forbidding small door which allows entrance to The Vault, audience
members were greeted warmly and invited to relax in front of a cosy fire and
take advantage of the well-stocked bar.
Eventually
the black curtain, which had divided the interior, was suddenly whisked away revealing
a cavernous performance area delineated by an array of pulsing fluorescent
lights.
A
disembodied voice encouraged the audience to occupy the seating arranged around
the perimeter of the area, and then began to explain the advantages of a treatment
offered by the patented Biomet Humechanical Uploading System TM.
Gentle
electronic sounds suggest busy technology going about its business, leading to an
uncomfortable feeling that somehow one is unwittingly being caught up
in some sort of advertising scam.
 |
| Alison Plevey and Sara Black perform "The Dataset" |
Eventually
spotlights reveal two figures, Plevey and Black, costumed in futuristic white
boilersuits.
They appear benign
about following the instructions of the disembodied voice, which identifies as
Ethan, as it continues intoning an endless list of mental, physical and
imaginary benefits that will result from the treatments, reinforced by a continuous
chatter-box stream projected on to the stark black wall behind.
The
pseudo-scientific aspects of the production are brilliantly realised, creating
a slightly surreal hypnotic effect as Plevey and Black progress through a
series of tests and exercises, which ultimately lead them to pile up the fluorescent
lights to form glowing campfires around which audiences members were invited to
gather in a happy family’s environment.
It is then
that the significance dawns of a chilling small-print message, available only
to those who bothered to read the QR code program: “Upon
entering Biomet’s Datacentre participants give up the rights to all data
uploaded. Access to participant’s data is given upon uploading and is assumed
beyond cancellation. Biomet can adjust groups of data to create optimal
recommendations. Any recommendations made by Ethan cannot be changed or altered”.
Images by Lorna Sim
This review also published in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW. www.artsreview.com.au
