ADC serves up another mind blowing if mystifying performance

After it was over I asked an aficionado what she thought it had all meant. ‘I really don’t know,’ she said. It’s truly puzzling, but I loved it, writes Phil Brown.

Australasian Dance Collective's Three. Picture: David Kelly

What just happened? I mean I kind of think I know but I’m not sure.

“What do you think it was about?” someone asked me after the first act of Three, Australasian Dance Collective’s (ADC) brilliant new show, which had its world premiere in the Playhouse at QPAC last night. It’s on until Saturday night - don’t miss it.)

“I’m not sure,” I said. “Give me a pencil and I can try to work it out.”

And I was only half joking. I even asked a dance aficionado what she thought it all meant and she was hazy. “I really don’t know,” she said.

Australasian Dance Collective's Three. Picture: David Kelly

Of course there are pointers in the program that are enough to go on but the narratives of the three works presented are not linear, not literal and are mostly non-verbal except for international choreographer superstar Hofesh Shechter’s piece, Cult, which had some words involved.

But the beauty of contemporary dance is that it is art that can be interpreted a number of ways and probably best at an intuitive level.

It’s art that we love too. ADC is certainly one of Australia’s most exciting dance companies. It was when it was EDC (Expressions Dance Company) under Natalie Weir, who was in the audience last night, and it continues to be under the stewardship of artistic director Amy Hollingsworth.

Amy Hollingsworth, artistic director of Australasian Dance Collective. Picture: Mark Cranitch.

Hollingsworth was renowned as one of the greatest contemporary dancers in the world when she was still performing, so she knows her stuff.

She gave a brief oration at the beginning of the show saying how thrilled she was to finally present this work which we were supposed to see last year.

It was just about to hit the stage when the pandemic hit and postponed it. For a year.

It’s great that it is finally on.

The first piece in this triple bill is Alterum by Melanie Lane and the program suggests that the six dancers featured “march, wrestle, writhe and fly in a collective dance that reflects the human desire to reach beyond the limits of our bodies while seeking to maintain the primal instincts of connection, protection, intimacy and desire”. Fair enough. I think I got that.

Australasian Dance Collective's Three. Picture: David Kelly

It was certainly a compelling piece with a sense of urgency and the dancers looked cool in their dark attire with their Austen Tayshus sunglasses. This piece was new dancer Tyrel Dulvarie’s ADC debut and the former Bangarra Dance Theatre dancer who is from Cairns didn’t disappoint with his intriguingly feline moves. He’s an absolute star but the dancers all are and it’s amazing that ADC can put on a show this impressive with just six dancers. They must be exhausted afterwards.

Dancer Tyrel Dulvarie. Picture: David Kelly

The second piece was choreographed by local boy Jack Lister, a dancer with the company who used to be with Queensland Ballet. The set for this was an art gallery and it referenced the traditions of Vanitas and Memento Mori that permeated Dutch painting in the 16th and 17th century. So it was again, a moving meditation on the human condition with its own arty aesthetic.

The last piece, Cult, by Israeli-born, London-based Hofesh Shechter was probably the most cerebral and again, it was the human condition being explored with a view to looking at the powers that steer human society. The music in this piece and in Alterum was atmospheric, even a bit dark, while the music in Lister’s was a break from all that with some lovely Mozart, Bellini and Chopin as a treat and a bit of a respite.

Australasian Dance Collective's Three. Picture: David Kelly

Shechter is considered one of the current greats of contemporary dance choreography and you can see why.

The piece was impressive but I can’t really put it into words which is tricky since that’s my job. But contemporary dance cannot be “formulated, sprawling on a pin” to borrow a phrase from T.S.Eliot. It challenges us to feel as much as think and it’s a mysterious process whereby movement becomes a sort of alchemy and a mystical language of movement.

I can’t go to a contemporary dance show without thinking of that Little Britain sketch in which the deranged Scottish hotelier, Ray McCooney, is asked a question and responds with ... “I shall explain it to you through the medium of dance.”

Good luck with that.