Review by Lisa Lanzi
It is a particularly nostalgic time for contemporary dance folk as Australian Dance Theatre celebrates its 60th year of existence and its status as the longest running full time dance company in our nation. In a poetic, cyclic fashion, current artistic director Daniel Riley (Wiradjuri) first met ADT’s founding director when he was an aspiring thirteen year old dancer. For A Quiet Language, Elizabeth Cameron Dalman returns to Adelaide to work with and inspire the newest members of the company she established in 1965.
Dance is the essentially ephemeral artform, unlike visual art where a substantive object will live on post the creative process. Though the term means “lasting for only a short period of time and leaving no permanent trace", dancers know intimately how movement inhabits their bodies and minds long after lights down, and spectators may have a visceral, possibly lingering reaction to this fleeting, impermanent artform. Certainly the infectious energy emanating from the Odeon stage on opening night left the audience elated and on their feet to applaud the production.
There is much to unpack within A Quiet Language co-directed and choreographed by Artistic Director Daniel Riley and Artistic Associate Brianna Kell, alongside contributions from the performers. The work is also a focus of the three-year partnership with the Australian Research Council entitled: ‘Re-Activating Australian Dance Theatre’s Archive for the Future’. This project enabled Dr Cheryl Stock AM (custodian of an illustrious career as dancer, choreographer, director, educator, researcher, and advocate) to reside with the company as ‘participant observer’. Such a broad remit could place immense pressure on a creative team to construct a dance work that celebrates a rich and varied past whilst referencing both present and future plus delivering a Festival-worthy production. Fortunately, ADT has emerged victorious.
The new work presented as part ‘happening’ and part multi-faceted, almost immersive experience. All elements combined exceptionally well: visuals, costume, set and lighting design, staging, live music, dramaturgy, and superb dancing coalesce to form a work where energy, emotion, and action ebb and flow in a series of seamlessly connected episodes. Five supremely watchable dancers, Sebastian Geilings, Yilin Kong, Zachary Lopez, Patrick O’Luanaigh, and Zoe Wozniak are wholly committed to the dynamism of the work. Promenade-style staging with viewing along two edges meant that the performers were closely observed and at times bright lighting allowed intimate, deliberate eye-contact with audience members, allowing the personalities of each dancer/character to shine.
Daniel Riley has spoken of the “five pillars” that informed the evolution of A Quiet Language: people, place, politics, body, voice. In homage to the artists, creatives, and staff across sixty years of ADT, decades and names scrolled swiftly across large rectangular screens mounted behind each bank of seating, the colours, text style and graphics giving a retro vibe. Similar reels of graphic text returned later in the work, the words reinforcing a sense of the rebellious or political atmosphere that might accompany a happening where lines were blurred between art and life, creativity and social rebellion. I was reminded of another Adelaide Festival sensation from 1996 when Spain’s La Fura dels Baus set their whole electric but controversial performance in and around a standing, seething crowd. Here the audience was separate from the performers but a delightful intimacy was definitely created.
In terms of ‘place’, Riley pays respect to ADT’s presence on Kaurna Yerta, the region of the Adelaide plains, where they are building auspiciously upon a 65,000 year legacy of art, creativity, and knowledge. Within the piece, there is also a very real sense of humanity’s place in the undeniably troubled world of now alongside the locus of dance as celebration, ritual, art, act of rebellion, and a shared, universal language. ‘Place’ can also be a safe, welcoming refuge from which we might venture to boldly change our future.
‘Body’ and ‘Voice’ are vehicles of expression in humans and dance artists and in A Quiet Language both are utilised fully as dramatic tools. In contrast to the title, vocalisations from the dancers shifted through many levels from conversational to rage-filled. Choreographically, gesture was a strong feature of the material which then morphed into full-body motion - sometimes grotesque, at times euphoric, tender or defeated, and stages in between. At various times throughout history dance, and bodies/flesh, have served as vehicles for political statement or personal testimonial and here we definitely witness this powerful legacy. However, joy too plays a part in the work as the finale dance party atmosphere takes over.
In Cameron Dalman’s ADT artists of all disciplines were welcomed to experiment and collaborate. Honouring this tradition, composer and musician Adam Page shares the stage actively with the dancers. Known widely for creative looping techniques as well as his sensitive playing, the reactive soundscape adds tremendously to the energy and atmosphere of A Quiet Language, as only live music can.
This work is one of the finest examples I have seen in recent years where dance successfully melds with other artforms so that the whole is elevated to a truly theatrical event. As Daniel Riley expresses in his program notes, “meet us where we’re at, with an open heart” - if only this message might filter through for the benefit of our shared world. Should this level of creativity continue and blossom, Australian Dance Theatre will once again cement its reputation for originality and excellence in the arts landscape.
