fuzzyfocus

If you have ever been visited by the dog… nipping at your ankles, then you would have been swept back into that dark world when viewing Clare Dyson’s dance production: “Churchills Black Dog”. It was presented as part of the Brisbane Festival at QUT’s Creative Precinct Roundhouse theatre.

It was a stunning piece that captured the isolation, the intense and helpless frustration of being consumed by depression. The stage was set simply with brown crunchy leaves covering the floor, a couple of casement windows, a door, a table and chairs, and a large claw foot bath. The dancers clawed, kicked,twitched, scrubbed and shyed away from the shadows haunting them, each in isolation.

A beautiful and moving piece that demonstrates how raw abstraction can bring such clarity of experience.

The orchestra! The drummers! The musical score!

Winners played for 1 night at the Concert Hall, QPAC as part of the Brisbane festival. Created by Fabrica, it brought together musicians from locations around the globe, with the Queensland Orchestra and the Mighty Taikoz. Documentry style video was composited onto various screens.

Winners was an ambitious project that was well worth seeing. For the most part it was successful, however some of the video content was weak (terminally ill patients), whilst some of it was very strong ( Maralinga victims). Interesting camera angles, and concept link ups with Berlin, New York and Sharpeville were explorative and enjoyable.

Technical details were not completely finetuned, eg. synching of the projectors was out - meaning jittery moving images. But this can be forgiven as the whole project was an amazing technical feat.

Great to see some projects out there really pushing technology in interestuing directions.

Cloud Gate dance theatre of Taiwan performed “Songs of the wanderers” at the Lyric Theatre as part of the Brisbnae Festival.

This was a truly transcending experience. The constant meditative pace made me painfully aware of its opposition to my busy, short-attention-span daily existence. It was beautiful- safron yellow rice on the black stage setting.  The bodies moving without moving, then bursting forward with life. The muscular control…. I am in awe at the whole masterpiece.