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| "My Place" - Photo: Olivia Fyfe |
Choreographed
by Ruth Osborne and Olivia Fyfe in collaboration with the dancers.
National
Portrait Gallery, Canberra, 21st to 24th January 2021.
Performance
24th January reviewed by Bill Stephens.
Drawing
inspiration from the exhibition “This Is My Place” currently on show at the
National Portrait Gallery, choreographers Ruth Osborne and Olivia Fyfe, worked in
close collaboration with seven recent tertiary dance graduates from VCA
(Victorian College of the Arts), WAAPA (Western Australian Academy of
Performing Arts), SDC (Sydney Dance Company Pre-Professional Year) to create an
abstract response to three sections of the exhibition, variously entitled, My
Country – My Place – My Studio.
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| Jason Pearce - Photo Olivia Fyfe |
A
continuation of an excellent initiative by the National Portrait Gallery to
enhance the exhibition experience by commissioning abstract dance works by
professional dance companies, the works are meant to challenge the viewer to
expand their perception beyond the actual artworks towards a deeper appreciation
of the connection between the artists and their subjects.
This
particular exhibition, “This Is My Place” is intended as a meditation on those
intimate spaces we call our own, whether they be countries, towns or homes,
represented in a collection of paintings, drawings, photographs and sculptures
spanning some 250 years.
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| Patricia Hayes- Cavanagh - Photo Olivia Fyfe |
I chose to
watch the resultant dance work, “My Place” before viewing the exhibition. The performance began quietly in the Tim
Fairfax Forecourt where the dancers, Amelia Vanzwol, Patricia Hayes-Cavanagh,
Jason Pearce, Ryan Stone, Maddy Bowman, Gabriel Sinclair and Alison Tong,
costumed attractively in individual muted earth-coloured costumes had unobtrusively gathered.
One by one each
began to perform individual movement variations. Some quiet and introspective, others aggressively
physical, each dancer engrossed in their own thoughts presumably inspired by
various aspects of the exhibition though intriguingly not yet obvious to this viewer.
Eventually
one dancer broke away and moved into the Gordon Darling Hall. Others dancers
followed until only a single dancer remained. He too completed his movements then,
trailed by his bemused audience, joined the others in the hall where an
evocative musical soundtrack accompanied a series of gently choreographed,
beautifully resolved groupings.
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| "My Place" - Photo: Lorna Sim |
As the pace
of the music quickened each dancer added an additional item of costume, a hat,
a jacket, a cap, referencing the urban aspects of the exhibition, which they
eventually discarded to bring the work to a slow lyrical and entirely
satisfying conclusion.
As I wandered
through the exhibition, my curiosity peaked by the performance, it was
satisfying to recognise many of the references, cleverly executed in dance
terms by the talented dancers performing “My Place”.
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| Ryan Stone and dancers - Photo: Lorna Sim |
However I
couldn’t help wondering what those unsuspecting visitors, who clearly had no
idea what they had stumbled across as they entered the gallery, made of it. I’m sure they would have appreciated a pamphlet
with a little information about the work, its purpose, together with the names
of the creators and performers which would have allowed them to alert their
friends to an additional pleasure they too might discover during at a future visit
to the National Portrait Gallery.