QL2 Dance -
Gorman House
25th
November 2012
Reviewed by
Bill Stephens
This is the 14th year QL2 dance has
presented “Hot to Trot”. The "Hot to Trot" program
provides the opportunity for young first-time choreographers to undertake a
short dance work, under the watchful eye of Ruth Osborne and with the
mentorship of Adelina Larsson.
As QL2 Artistic Director, Ruth
Osborne, explains in her program notes..”These choreographers need to take
responsibility for their dancers’ well-being, source costumes and music,
consider lighting design, write program notes and work to a timeline to have
their piece rehearsed and performance ready in time”.
This year 12
young choreographers stepped up to the challenge, some in collaborations and
others alone. They produced 8 short works for a diverting,
never-less-than-interesting program.
Each
choreographer introduced their work to a packed house in the QL2 studios at
Gorman House. The program commenced with one of the more successful works, a
playful piece for four dancers, choreographed by Amanda Lee. Entitled “You May Hate Gravity, But Gravity
Doesn’t Care” this work featured delightfully quirky music and colourful
costumes. The clever choreography was very well danced by Georgia Holgate,
Alice Brown, Darcy Read and Ryan Stone, who had obviously invested a lot of
work to polish the gymnastic-based unison sections devised by Lee.
Georgia Crow
and Kayla Smurthwaite danced their own collaboration “Derailed”. Making good use of their attractive dark red
split skirts worn over black leotards, which were an integral part of the dance
work, “Derailed” was danced to thoughtfully chosen music and featured effective
use of unison movement and well-executed floor work.
Using a
silent protest by a group of Chilean women as her inspiration, Ashleigh Simpson
created a dramatic work for three dancers, Alana Stenning, Portia Lawson and
Indigo Trail, entitled “Dancing Alone”. Notable for the lovely open movement of
the choreography, this work made good use of narration and dramatic lighting to
produce a series of powerful images.
Darcy Read
made imaginative use of the windows at the back of the stage in her exquisite
little work “Who do You Rely On” which she danced with her brother Simon, and
in which she explored sibling relationships using words, well-chosen images and
muscular movement to produce a work that was both touching and entertaining.
Tamar
Peacock, Amy Peacock and Melissa Markos collaborated on a piece called
“Stepping into the Shower”, which they also danced. Utilising a large dance
vocabulary, thoughtfully-chosen music and sound effects and incorporating wet hair in the manner of
Meryl Tankard, this piece was interesting but did not really solve, in
choreographic terms, the task they had set themselves of producing a work which
suggested being in a world of their own in a shower.
For his
hip-hop-inspired piece, “Equality Doesn’t Cannot Exist”, Jack Riley
incorporated dramatic projections and spoken narration (excellently delivered
by Ryan Stone) to produce an arresting and memorable piece. The four dancers,
Alex Abbott, Amanda Lee, Darcy Read and Ryan Stone managed the demanding floor
work with considerable élan.
Wearing
black hoodies, Luke Fryer and Nasim Patel performed their own choreography to
present a powerful and effective piece called “Internal/External” exploring
teenage angst and how people find ways to avoid contact with each other. While
lacking the overall inventiveness of some of the earlier works, it still
contained many interesting passages.
Georgia
Holgate chose the music of Phillip Glass for her piece, “The Drawn Line”, in
which she made intriguing use of net to differentiate spaces in an intriguing
work which was excellently danced by Madison Hegarty, Alice Brown, Amanda Lee,
Ryan Stone and Nathan Rutups, and which also proved an excellent finale to an
evening that was both entertaining and exhilarating.
Following
the performance, the dancers and choreographers returned to the stage, with
mentor Adelina Larsson, to discuss the process and their works. For dance
enthusiasts this session offered
fascinating insights into the process of producing a dance work, in addition to
the opportunity to watch young emerging choreographers grapple with the
challenge of exploring and discovering a dance vocabulary.
