Jade Dewi Tyas Tunggal
The Street Theatre
June 14 2013
Reviewed by Samara Purnell
To summarise Opal Vapour in a few words, it was beautiful,
hypnotic and aurally satisfying. And given a few more – the production by Jade
Dewi Tyas Tunggal is a well-crafted, multi-faceted and powerful piece of
theatre that deserves a bigger audience than it had.
This texturally rich performance is based in Tunggal ‘s
Javanese heritage, incorporating elements of traditional shadow puppetry and
utilizing fabrics, light, shadow and projection.
Add to that the warm, pure vocals of Ria Soemardjo and
her viola and gamelan music. Her singing was beautifully soothing and
meditative and paired especially well with Tunggal (who performs on a lightbox)
when she appears to float slowly through water, perhaps drowning, perhaps
peacefully floating in a mother’s womb. The movement was projected with blue
lights, through the well-crafted lighting design and operation by Paula van
Beek, and skilfully manipulated to draw the eye between dancer and projection.
Flowing movements pushing sand across the lightbox creating images
reminiscent of indigenous art were followed by strong traditional dance moves. Elements
of earth and water felt integral as was a sense of watching sacred rituals and
the timelessness of death, birth, duty and discovery.
Transitions would have been better made utilizing
Soemardjo’s music as a focus. At one stage she is surely the recipient of
copious amounts of flying sand.
Tunggal’s hand gestures at times lack the flexibility and
nuances that dancers spend years perfecting and the performance lost a little
momentum at the end, following the strength of earlier movements but her muscular
body and Soemardjo’s presence create a strong synergy and sustain a feminine
energy throughout.
