AWKWARD

 

Awkward. 

Written and choreographed by Cadi McCarthy. Producer Adam Deusian. Performers: Jordan Bretherton, Cassidy Clarke, Alexandra Ford, Nicola Ford, Romain Hassanin, Remy Rochester, and Anna McCulla Catapult Dance Choreographic Hub.. The B The Q Theatre. Queanbeyan Arts Centre. March 27th  2024

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins.

 

The company of AWKWARD

Choreographer Cadi McCarthy has a knack for intuitively sensing the vulnerability of the human psyche. Her latest creation, Awkward, explores the embarrassing circumstance of finding yourself at a party where you know no one and face the challenging task of meeting people and chartering your way through the difficult social situation. McCarthy’s concept is immediately identifiable. We have all found ourselves at one time or another struggling to make conversation, establish rapport with strangers or find ourselves out of our comfort zone. A party is the perfect place to demonstrate the awkwardness that can occur when you know no one and need to connect.

McCarthy’s company of dancers are perfectly placed to understand the evolving experience as they move from a feeling of isolation to tentative communication to group connectivity to physical attraction and finally to a state of inebriation. McCarthy carefully constructs a series of vignettes with tableaus, solo moments, duets and company routines. One of the company introduces the different moments in the party, describing the behaviours of the party goers and in one hilarious sequence instructing one of the dancers in various dance moves.   Joel Etherton gives a very funny and highly exhausting performance of a gauche novice at the groovy party moves. 

 Accompanied by a terrific sound track that takes the dancers from Chris de Burgh’s The Lady in Red to Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart to Ariane Grande’s version of Bang Bang You’re Dead and   Jeff Buckley’s soulful All Tomorrow’s Parties. It is the soundtrack of the vulnerable, the music of the heart, the songs of experience.

Awkward is as much physical theatre as it is contemporary dance. It is performed by a versatile and athletic company of dancers who roll over each other, perform lifts and work on their own moments as well as coming together as a tight ensemble. Through the work they weave a story of rejected love, of macho conflict, of new relationships and of competitiveness. Vignette by vignette the party becomes a metaphor for the human nature. The narration gives the worl clarity and context and the audience is drawn in to the dancers’ world.

Catapult has been on a regional tour, playing different spaces in different places.In The B at the Queanbeyan Arts Centre the dancers performed on the stage and on the floor. Often the focus was split because of the two levels and I found my eyes wandering from one side to another or from the floor to the stage. It took a short while for me to focus on the key moment in the dance, and I expect that the dancers also found themselves adjusting to a different space.

That aside, Awkward is a highly entertaining piece that captures the universal state of social awkwardness. The young company is talented and exudes vitality with a clear grasp of McCarthy’s choreographic and theatrical vision. It is a work that speaks to young and old alike, those who are living it now and all those who can remember.

Photos by Ashley de Prazer