2021 Mullins Conceptual Photography Prize

Photography Review by Brian Rope

Various artists: 2021 Mullins Conceptual Photography Prize

Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre | Until 20 August 2021

The annual Mullins Conceptual Photography Prize (MCPP) is conducted by the Australian Photographic Society. The 2021 winners were announced on 17 July at the Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre (MRAC). Attendance was restricted to just seven people, but the short event was simultaneously livestreamed to a broader audience nationwide via both Facebook and Zoom. As many people cannot visit the physical exhibition the MCPP Management Team has had a wonderful virtual gallery created, which allows anyone to explore all the images.

Of 43 finalists selected by the judges, three are Canberra artists – Ian Skinner, Lyndall Gerlach, and Judy Parker. All three of them were amongst an astounding nine Canberra finalists in 2020, with Parker winning the Prize on that occasion.

This year it was Skinner’s turn – he was announced as the winner of the $10,000 Prize for his finalist entry – Ashscapes 01-04. In his concept statement accompanying the image, Skinner speaks of the catastrophic fires in southeastern Australia in 2019-2020 which were followed by torrential rain. He explains that the rivers and creeks disgorged debris into the ocean causing the waves to turn grey with ash and convulse with charred remnants. The image shows where gentler waves deposited small flecks of carbonised vegetation on the beaches in “ephemeral patterns suggesting the hills, ridges and valleys of their living selves”. It is a beautiful artwork, most deserving of the Prize.

Ashscapes 01-04 - Ian Skinner

 

Skinner’s winning artwork has been acquired by the Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre for its permanent collection of post-war contemporary paintings, ceramic and photography. It joins the previous MCPP winners in that important collection.

Other prize winners were Ian Terry from Hobart and Anne Pappalardo from Brisbane, both of whom also entered excellent works. Terry received a $500 gift voucher for his work Night on the Tier - part of his ongoing project responding to the journeys of George Augustus Robinson who, assisted by palawa (Indigenous Tasmanian) guides, walked through Van Diemen’s Land in the 1830s to persuade palawa still on Country to give up their resistance to the European invasion of their island. In following Robinson, with his journal in hand, Terry is seeking to connect the historical with the contemporary, to make sense of his own existence “in this island of dreams which was stolen violently from its first people”. The fractured landscape shown wonderfully in the image is where Robinson spent his first night on one conciliation expedition.

Night on the tier - Ian Tier

Terry – also a 2019 finalist - had a second finalist entry this year - about the time he spent in COVID quarantine and reveals his view during those days of the outside world through his hotel bedroom window – whilst outside “the world changed and convulsed in ways few of us had previously imagined”.

This is three years in succession Pappalardo has been a finalist, also taking out an award in 2019. She received a $250 voucher for her work A New Place to Stay. For 50 years, her parents had Christmas holidays at the Tallebudgera Caravan Park on the Gold Coast, where their most cherished family memories were made. Age led them to sell their vintage caravan and book a high-rise beachfront apartment nearby the Park, “with high hopes for this journey toward a new tradition”. It rained torrentially and constantly for their stay, and this artwork reflects their gloom at the disappointing beginning to their new holiday ritual.

 

A New Place to Stay - Anne Pappalardo

Parker’s finalist artwork Australia-2020-2021? is of collected small objects that have caught her attention as interesting forms, including rusted bottle tops, carelessly discarded in public carparks and distorted by passing traffic. She began to think of these as symbols rather than curiosities: 2020, a horror year, represented in her image by these objects of zero value, in the colours of bushfires and plague: “photographs of 20 bottle tops, arranged in vaguely robotic form, varied to symbolise localised improvements or problems”. At the beginning of 2021, Parker incorporated another found object, a brutalised ten cent piece, (worthless currency) hovering, above the “20” as a symbol of hope but uncertainty.

 

Australia-2020-2021 - Judy Parker

Gerlach’s finalist image is another of her evocative creations titled Stream of Consciousness. She has always been interested in exploring the intriguing relationships between conscious awareness, the sub-conscious, ‘dream states’, and ‘stream of consciousness’. Addressing the question “What if the conceptual work was about suspending the certainty of conscious control?”, in post-production her images “became independent, remaking themselves, revealing different subjects, emotions and words. Colour, dark, deep, breathless. Embraces completely, cold slow flowing deep ice-water. Faint light shafts catch drifting lines”.

 

Stream of Consciousness - Lyndall Gerlach

There were series entries as well as single image entries this year, with four series making the exhibition. Of those, Anne O’Connor’s four colourful composites of fallen leaves  - titled Fallen Memories - look beautiful on the gallery wall.

 

Fallen Memories 01 - Anne O'Connor

Amongst the other artworks some that I particularly enjoyed were another two by O’Connor – East Coast Dreaming and I walk the land, Clare Weekes’ Collection Red, David Cossini’s Grande Bruto El Gato Loco,  Greg Tate’s Man Truck Woman Dog Bone, Todd Kennedy’s The East Australian Monolith and Tracy Lees’ A Surreal Life.

 

East Coast Dreaming - Anne O'Connor

I  walk the land - Anne O'Connor

Collection Red - Clare Weeks

Grande Bruto El Gato Loco - David Cossini

Man Truck Woman Dog Bone - Greg Tate

The East Australian Monolith - Todd Kennedy

A Surreal Life - Tracy Lees

I could discuss these and every other exhibit, but I’ll leave it for readers to explore themselves. The best way to appreciate each image is to read the artists’ Concept Statements whilst looking at them – either on the walls of the MRAC, on the virtual gallery mentioned in the opening paragraph of this review, or under the Finalists tab here.

One question for consideration is whether every image is truly conceptual (or whether a statement adequately explains the artist’s concept). One of the judges has shared her view that the majority of the works are not conceptual, despite having been selected as finalists. If she is right, then future entrants may need to work harder on their statements as well as creating great imagery.

This review is also on the author's own blog here.

 

The Performance

 

Published by Hachette Australia

The Performance.  A novel by Claire Thomas.  Hachette Australia, 2021.

Reviewed by Frank McKone


When watching a performance in a theatre, I often wonder what is going on in the heads of others in the audience.  You hear the occasional cough, and sense if the cougher seems embarrassed or seems to have no concern for the feelings of others.  I laugh, and shrink in a little as I realise I’ve laughed too loud.

As a critic, my feelings in response to what’s happening on stage are mixed with thoughts of many kinds about the technical elements like casting, costume and hairdressing, lighting, sound, use of voices, choreography of movement, and even placing of this play and this production in the history of theatre.  If thoughts about private matters arise, as they can, of course, I will try to set them aside and re-focus my attention on the performance.

As I write this, I seem to have become a character, not mentioned by Claire Thomas, in her audience watching Happy Days by Samuel Beckett.  Except that I am remembering the production directed by the one-time Canberra High School highly respected principal and noted theatre identity, Ralph Wilson, in 1991 – in what is now affectionately known as the Ralph Wilson Theatre.

In The Performance, the performance is clearly in a professional theatre.  Margot is an established academic and subscriber, Summer is an usher and budding actor, while Ivy is a middle-aged arts enthusiast who has brought her friend Hilary.  She thinks “Hilary was the obvious person to bring along.  They studied Waiting for Godot together in high school, an experience that marked the beginning of Ivy’s passion for Beckett, or SB as she came to refer to him.”  

“Summer has once again missed the beginning of the play” because she’s not “on Stairs” this night, but “on Door” where “her main task is handling the latecomers in the foyer".  Margot is “almost late”, “shuffling in a balletic first position along the strip of carpet between the legs of the already-seated people…and the chair backs of the row in front”.

And I immediately thought of the occasion in the Canberra Theatre, when my wife and I were amused, fortunately not in the same row as their one nearer the stage, watching the tremendously tall Margaret and Gough Whitlam, one-time Prime Minister of Australia, doing a more commanding kind of shuffle.  Then I thought, there’s another book everyone should read: Margaret Whitlam – A Biography by Susan Mitchell (Random House, 2006).

That’s what I love about The Performance.  It just naturally takes you into thinking about things, just like the characters in the story.  They are making connections, thinking and re-thinking about what’s happening on stage and what’s been triggered in their memories and about what’s happening around them at the moment.  It’s an absorbing book to read.  Though I had to take a break of a few days at interval, I understand entirely why musician and writer Clare Bowditch commented “I read from start to finish almost without looking up”.

I meant “at interval” literally.  The novel has a theatrical structure.  Before interval there are six parts, simply numbered ONE to THREE, focussed in turn on Margot, Summer and Ivy; then FOUR to SIX following each of them up later in Act One.  

Then comes THE INTERVAL – a short play, in four scenes, by Claire Thomas.  The characters listed are

SUMMER, female, early 20s, theatre usher
PROFESSOR MARGOT PIERCE, female, early 70s, audience member
IVY PARKER, female, early 40s, audience member
HILARY FULLER, female, early 40s, audience member
JOEL, male, mid-20s, audience member
APRIL, female, mid-20s (screen and voice only)

After The Interval, there are parts SEVEN to NINE, again following up Margot, Summer and Ivy in order through Act Two of Happy Days.  You don’t need to have seen or read Happy Days, but you certainly get to feel you appreciate Beckett’s work as each of the three respond to particular images, sounds, words and quality of light which spark their thoughts and feelings.

It is Ivy, then, through whose eyes we see the end of the play, in which Winnie is buried up to her waist in Act One and up to her neck in Act Two.  Ivy notes “When the lights darken to allow a surge in applause, Winnie will not climb out of her trap to appear whole again like a magician’s assistant whose destruction was an illusion.  Winnie will stay inside the mound.  She will not appease the audience.”

This is where the novel comes to its fruition, matching the insights of Samuel Beckett and the director and designer of his play (whom I take to be Claire Thomas, since there is no reference to any actual performance) with the inter-related experiences of the three women, and the traps they may or may not climb out of.

I can only agree with the other readers quoted on the cover of this novel: “Witty, affecting, brilliantly wise and original” (Gail Jones); “A potent meditation on the intensity of women’s lives” (Charlotte Wood); and “Read it as soon as you possibly can” (Emily Bitto).



 

First published by Grove Press NY
1961
First production at Cherry Lane Theatre, New York City on 17 September 1961

UNVEILED

 

Anna Hosking and Joshua Walsh in "Unveiled"

Produced, Directed and Choreographed by Bonnie Neate and Suzy Piani.

Erindale Theatre. July 15^th and 17^th.

Reviewed by Bill Stephens.

Canberra is fortunate to have many excellent dance schools which over the years have produced dancers who have gone on to significant National and International careers. For those dancers wishing to forge a professional career as a dancer, the leap from dance school to a dance company or professional employment as a dancer, usually requires that they leave Canberra to undertake further training to bring them to professional level.

Enter Bonnie Neate and Suzy Piani, two passionate professional dance educators, who having observed the high calibre of the dancers being produced by local dance schools, identified a need for a local transitional program.

With that in mind they instituted this self-funded project for which they held open auditions to select  20  young aspiring-professional dancers, aged between 15 and 23 years  from dance schools around Canberra to work at professional level on an original full-length contemporary work entitled “Unveiled”.

An inspired deconstruction of the romantic classical ballet “Giselle”, “Unveiled” incorporates none of the music or choreography from that ballet.  Instead Neate and Piani have compiled a superbly recorded soundtrack of contemporary and classical music and songs.

Eschewing traditional scenery the work is presented on a bare stage enhanced by striking lighting effects, with a huge screen providing a background for atmospheric video images and shadows. .

Elegant, sophisticated modern dancewear with only occasional references to the classical inspirations of the piece focussed full attention on the meticulously groomed dancers as they skilfully executed the demanding choreography with impressive attention to mood, characterisation and detail.

The choreography devised by Neate and Piani for this production is complex, inventive and continually interesting, embracing classical, acrobatic and contemporary dance elements.  The brilliantly executed ensemble sequences demanded and received precise, committed execution, bringing to mind lavish Busby Berkeley extravaganzas, but cleverly incorporated in this production for particular effect, as in an early sequence when Giselle and Albrecht desperately maintain eye contact as the dancers swirl around them.

Anna Hosking as Giselle already possesses a brilliant technique. Her beautiful line and extraordinary extensions and flexibility are showcased in complex acrobatic choreography for moody solos and expressive duets for which she is sensitively partnered by Joshua Walsh as Albrecht. 

As the only male in the production Walsh partnered  with distinction while evoking a charming blokey characterisation which provided an excellent focal point for the ire of the willis, led by Alice Collins as the Queen of Girlfriends past, when his roving eye finally brings about his comeuppance.

Anna Hosking and Joshua Walsh in "Unveiled"

Holly Hilder as Albrecht’s jilted fiancé Bathilde, Sarah Duffy and Ali Mayes as Giselle’s friends, Bertha and Hilaria, and Olivia Smith as the Temptress, all provided sharply delineated characterisations which kept the storyline focussed throughout the many cleverly choreographed and superbly executed ensemble sequences.

Delightfully entertaining as well as brilliantly choreographed and performed, “Unveiled” provides a compelling argument for the benefits of pre-professional training.  One hopes that it is seen by decision makers who could provide the funding to make a reality of the ambition of Bonnie Neate and Suzy Piani to provide talented Canberra dancers with such a resource. 

                                                             Photos by ES Fotografi 

          This review first published in the digital edition of CITY NEWS on 17.07.21.

LOVE AND OTHER TRAPS - ART SONG CANBERRA

 

Piera Dennerstein, Soprano

Lucus Allerton, Piano

Wesley Music Centre 18 July

 

Reviewed by Len Power

 

Love doesn’t always run smoothly and Art Song Canberra’s concert, ‘Love and Other Traps’, covered a wide range of rapturous songs and some unsettling songs involving loss and even death.  The nicely balanced program included several very well-known songs as well as some lesser known ones.  There were songs by Scarlatti, Giordani, Debussy, Fauré, Schubert and Britten amongst others.

Soprano, Piera Dennerstein, completed a double Bachelor in Music and Arts (Hons. 1) at the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music at Monash University.  She has performed in opera in France, Italy and China and has worked extensively in Australia with the Victorian Opera Chorus and Lyric Opera of Melbourne as well as in corporate events.

Piano accompanist, Lucus Allerton, graduated from the ANU School of Music with Honours in Piano in 2013.  Now employed as an accompanist for vocalists at the ANU School of Music, he is active and much in demand on the art song scene nationally.

Lucus Allerton and Piera Dennerstein

The program commenced with Scarlatti’s ‘If Florindo Is Faithful’.  Dennerstein sang it with great passion and accuracy, giving the song an unexpected and welcome depth of characterization.  She is clearly a fine actress as well.

Piera Dennerstein

Moving on to the very well-known ‘Caro mio ben’ by Giordani, she sang it with great tenderness but with strong feeling underneath the words.  Revealing to the audience that she is Italian and that her friends’ nickname for her is ‘Pavarotti’, she then gave us a sparkling and fun ‘O solo mio!’.  It was sung with great joy and her powerful voice easily handled the sustained high notes in the song.

Other highlights in the program included ‘Pierrot’ by Debussy, ‘Ave Maria’ by Schubert, Britten’s ‘Death Be Not Proud’ and Fauré’s ‘Fleur Jetée’ with a masterful performance by Allerton of the complex accompaniment for this song.

Both performers gave friendly, often amusing and informative background information about the songs and their down to earth delivery easily won their audience over.  Dennerstein’s love of singing was obvious throughout the program and she shared that joy with vivacity, passion and skilful singing.

Once again, Art Song Canberra has given us a superb concert with two very fine performers.

Photos by Peter Hislop 

Len Power’s reviews are also broadcast on the Artsound FM 92.7 ‘In the Foyer’ program on Mondays and Wednesdays at 3.30pm.

 

This review is also published in Len Power’s blog ‘Just Power Writing’ at https://justpowerwriting.blogspot.com/.

 

 

 

SANDSONG - Songs from the Great Sandy Desert - Bangarra Dance Theatre

 

Riki Hamaguchi and Company in "Sandsong"

Choreographed by Stephen Page, Frances Rings and the dancers of Bangarra Dance Theatre.

Composed by Steve Francis – Costumes designed by Jennifer Irwin

Set Design by Jacob Nash - Lighting design by Nick Schlieper

Canberra Theatre from 15^th – 17^th July 2021.

Reviewed by Bill Stephens.

Perhaps its most political offering to date, and certainly one of its most ambitious, Bangarra’s first full-length work in three years, “Sandsong”, traces the history of the indigenous inhabitants of the Great Sandy Desert over the centuries.

This history is encapsulated in sixteen episodes, some of which are harsh, starting with an uncomfortably loud filmed sequence with a deliberately grating soundtrack incorporating archival images of men in iron chains, prison scenes and gunshots. Some sequences are literal, involving traditional dances and initiation ceremonies. Others depict people being auctioned to work as labourers on stations, and station workers rising up against their treatment by the landowners.

Riki Hamaguchi - Baden Hitchcock in "Sandsong"

Lyrical episodes include a beautiful sequence involving a lost boy which concludes with a lovely duet between the boy and his sister, memorably performed by Rika Hamaguchi and Baden Hitchcock.

The episodes flow seamlessly in a kind of  living tapestry depicting significant events and customs relating to the Great Sandy Desert and ending in a spectacular finale for which the entire company was costumed in costumes splashed with gold against a gorgeous shimmering gold backcloth creating, perhaps incongruously, the effect of an exotic Klimt painting.

Bangarra dancers in the finale of "Sandsong"

Jennifer Irwin’s costumes for the various sections ranged through simple brief earth-coloured trunks and tops, through trousers, skirts and shifts, until finally the afore-mentioned spectacular finale costumes and always perfect for the events being portrayed.

So were Jacob Nash’s beautiful moody sculptural settings, beautifully lit by Nick Schlieper to create sympathetic environments for each of the episodes.

Bangarra is a proud ensemble company, but since its last visit to Canberra there have been some significant changes in the line-up of dancers. The choreography for “Sandsong” is attributed to Stephen Page, Frances Rings and the dancers of the company. It was danced with extraordinary commitment and skill by the dancers, perhaps as a result of their involvement in the choreography.

However among the familiar faces, Beau Dean Riley Smith and Rika Hamaguchi both continue to exhibit that special charisma and presence that draws the eye to them whenever they are on stage.

One section entitled “Build up/ Walk off” featured aerial work performed by Rikki Mason and Lillian Banks. Although marginally interesting, the necessary clumsy apparatus caused it to become an unwanted intrusion on the otherwise mystical atmosphere of the rest of the piece.

"Sandsong"

Bangarra Dance Theatre is unique in that it is devoted to telling indigenous stories through the medium of dance. “Sandsong”, with its stories of the Kimberley and the Great Sandy Desert, is a compelling addition to its extraordinary repertoire.  

                                                      Photos by Daniel Boud

This review also appears in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW. www.artsreview.com.au

SANDSONG Stories from the Great Sandy Desert

 

 

Sandsong.

Choreographed by Stephen Page and Frances Rings. Music composed by Steve Francis. Set designer Jacob Nash. Lighting design Nick Schlieper. Costume designer Jennifer Irwin. AV designer David Bergman. Dancers: Lillian Banks, Bradley Smith, Courtney Radford, Kassidy Waters. Kallum Goolagong. Gusta Mara. Kiarn Doyle. Emily Flannery. Maddisom Paluch. Daniel Mateo Bangarra Dance Theatre in consultation with Wangkatjungka/Walmajarri Elders from the Kimberley and Great Sandy Desert regions. . Canberra Theatre. Canberra Theatre Centre. July 15 – 17 2021.

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

Steve Francis’s powerful composition explodes forcibly as the curtain rises on set designer Jacob Nash and lighting designer Nick Schlieper’s landscape of pindan red dust soil rising to a flaming red backdrop of spindly tree trunks in the heart of the Kimberley Desert. This is the landscape of an ancient culture of an ancient peoples. It is the landscape of invasion and cruelty, of protest and of survival. Images flicker against the trees. People of the Kimberley Desert enslaved in chains, torn from their families, dispossessed of their land and imprisoned behind wire walls. It is the landscape of pride, spirits and totem, of Nature, the environment and age old custom and laws. It is a landscape defiled and an environment that renews and offers hope, the hope revealed by the songlines that sweep through the ages and sung by the proud people of the Kimberley Desert.

Here lies the heart of Bangarra Dance Theatre’s latest tribute to the resilience of the land’s First Nation people. Sandsong is a stunning, moving, thought-provoking expression of the power of art to reveal in all its profundity the human spirit. Contemporary dance and traditional ritual and commemoration combine in a fusion of dance, music, song  evocative lighting and the spoken word. Grace and athleticism give rise to story and commentary. The language of Bangarra’s dance is articulated through the image of experience. Men’s business and women’s business encapsulate the order and custom of a society. Choreographers Stephen Page and Frances Rings weave a physical masterpiece of magical storytelling.

Told in four Acts, Sandsong takes us on a journey of awareness as a young woman is guided through kinship and the traditional Bush Onion Dance. Similarly, a young man is initiated into the ritual transformation to manhood. In Act 2 men and women perform their separate business. They are rooted to the land and imbued with the spirits of ancestral custom. The women hunt while the men make shelters from the smoking spinifex. In Act 3 tranquility and order are rent asunder by the arrival of the invaders, the enslavement of a noble people and the vile voice of an auctioneer who condemns the captives to cruel labour, only to be offered hope by the voiceover of Vincent Lingari. A lost boy in Act Four serves as the catalyst for rescue by his sister and the spirits of the ancestral Lore Men who can initiate the healing. This is the Lore Time, the time of hope and healing, of resilience and commemoration of spirit and union. These are the stories of the Great Sandy Desert, sung and danced by the people who have survived the oppression, the displacement and the ignorance of centuries of occupation of their land. Page and Rings use the power of their creative imagination to tell their story through a dance that transcends time and space. Ritual passed down through the ages is threaded through a woven tapestry of spiritual  and emotional physicality, powerfully connected to the earth and embracing the air in a soaring aerial display by a male and female dancer. Page and Ring’s choreographic tapestry is rich in form and movement, combining the familiar with the innovative. Ever changing like the seasons that give it substance, the dance weaves its song lines and stories in a  performance of visual and aesthetic bewitchment.

To witness Sandsong is to be transported to a new consciousness. I am left at the end of the performance as the dancers find comfort in the sands of their people with a faith in their power to survive, but a despair that Sandsong sings the same laments of ages past. There is hope. There is change, but Bangarra teaches us that the past serves to instruct the future and the magnificence of their art is the mirror to a people and a culture that must be preserved and shared,

A final word of advice. Do read the programme notes before the curtain rises, You will be transported by this beautifully staged and exquisitely danced experience, but even more enriched if you appreciate the way the story is magically woven through the dance. Sandsong reaffirms Bangarra Dance Theatre’s exalted place as the nation’s national treasure.

SANDSONG

 

Bangarra Dance Theatre

Choreographers: Stephen Page, Frances Rings

Composer: Steve Francis

Canberra Theatre, Canberra Theatre Centre to 17 July

 

Reviewed by Len Power 15 July 2021

 

With ‘Sandsong’, Bangarra Dance Company takes us again into the world of stories emanating from our vast country and its First Nation people.  Tradition, memory, history and songs handed down through generations come together to produce a dance work of great beauty and purpose.

Subtitled ‘Stories From The Sandy Desert’, ‘Sandsong’ tells the stories of the desert homelands of the Wangkatjungka and Walmajarri peoples of the Kimberley and Great Sandy Desert regions.

The central core of ‘Sandsong’ is a journey into ancient story systems framed against the backdrop of ever-changing government policy and of the survival of people determined to hold strong to their Culture.

The dance consists of four acts.  Acts one, two and four depict the seasons – the cold dry, the hot dry and the wet season.  The third act depicts the impact of the White Man.

Baden Hitchcock

 

Traditional dances and stories feature in the Cold Dry Season (Makurra) – kinship and place, ceremony, food and totems.  In the Hot Dry Season (Parranga), the women hunt in spite of drought and the scarcity of food and water.  The impact of the White Man (Kartiya) shows the injustices of servitude, trauma and station labour and the people leaving the land.  The Wet Season (Vitilal) looks to contemporary times, healing, empowerment and reaffirming ties to Country.  As the people gather for the Ceremony, the cycle of seasons and life continues.

Choreographers Stephen Page, Frances Rings and the Bangarra Dancers have created a haunting work filled with meaning.  Quiet sections are almost dream-like with combinations of dancers creating moments of great beauty.  The aerial sequence is especially arresting.  Contrasting dramatic sections highlight the precision and skill of these expert dancers.

Bangarra ensemble

 

The set design by Jacob Nash is dramatic and colourful and the costume designs by Jennifer Irwin are richly derived from nature.  Music by Steve Francis provides a fascinating soundscape that continually heightens the drama onstage and Nick Schlieper’s lighting design gives a striking focus that often elevates the dance to another level.

Once again, Bangarra have given us a work that instructs while it entertains.  This first new full-length work in three years is unique and memorable.

 

Photos by Daniel Boud

 

Len Power’s reviews are also broadcast on the Artsound FM 92.7 ‘In the Foyer’ program on Mondays and Wednesdays at 3.30pm.

This review is also published in Len Power’s blog ‘Just Power Writing’ at https://justpowerwriting.blogspot.com/.