Devised and
performed by Cher Albrect, Deb Clelland, Ruth O’Brien, Alison Plevey
Ralph Wilson
Theatre, Gorman Arts Centre - 28th September to 1st
October
Reviewed by
Bill Stephens
This
collaboration between an acrobat, a stunt-woman, a dancer and a singer, was the
first presentation in the inaugural season of Ralph Indie. Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s
essay of the same name for inspiration, Cher Albrect, Deb Clelland, Alison
Plevey and Ruth O’Brien have utilised elements of contemporary dance and aerial
acrobatics to explore the political significance of how we move our bodies and
occupy space. The result is a provocative work-in-progress which is at different
times, puzzling, confronting, thought-provoking and thoroughly entertaining.
The audience
entered the Ralph Wilson theatre to discover that the seating had been removed
and that the auditorium was bare except for an orange silk sculpture and two
hoops strung high above the performing area. Ropes and aerial apparatus
decorated the walls.
Experienced
experimental theatre attendees quickly commandeered the few stools scattered
around the perimeter. Those who missed out had to be content with leaning
against the walls or sitting on the floor for the entire performance.
Unsettling
loud banging on one of the side entrances heralded the start of the performance.
The four performers burst into the room simultaneously from different entrances,
wiggling and squirming grotesquely. They then began to wiggle and squirm among
the audience, disconcertingly, under the legs of those seated, or claiming
positions among those around the walls. “Sometimes
to make space you have to wiggle” one exclaimed, providing the key to the work.
A series of abstract
episodes followed, performed with impressive skill by Cher Albrect, Deb
Clelland and Alison Plevey. Complex
manoeuvres on the aerial apparatus, whizzing
around on small bicycles, creating curious shapes inside a mattress cover, walking
up walls in tightly choreographed sequences, or on one occasion, climbing onto
the shoulders of a colleague while wearing red stiletto’s, challenged and
intrigued.
Occasionally
the performers declaimed text from various sources including The Journal of
Experimental Biology, Safe Work Australia, Dar Williams’ “When I Was a Boy” and
Iris Marion Young’s “Throwing Like a Girl”. Other times they worked to a haunting
soundtrack, created, spontaneously by Ruth O’Brien using looping technology.
Ending
playfully, and on message, with an invitation from the performers, for their
bemused audience to join them in making space to do something different, to
explore, to have fun, or to simply contemplate, “Wiggle Room” proved an
auspicious entree into the inaugural Ralph Indie.
This review first published in the digital edition of CITY NEWS on 3rd October 2016