Drums and dancers propel Stephanie Lake’s Manifesto

Stephanie Lake’s new dance work, Manifesto, produces a beautiful noise, joyous movement, and whoops of delight from the audience.

Stephanie Lake’s Manifesto has nine dancers and nine drummers on stage

Bodies and the beat. That’s all you need to know about Manifesto and it’s enough, particularly when the moving bodies – nine of the best – are provided by Stephanie Lake and the beat delivered by an equal number of drummers playing Robin Fox’s thrilling score.

You certainly don’t need to know anything about contemporary dance. This isn’t a piece to be gnawed over at home afterwards while trying to decipher intent. Manifesto is a work of intense immediacy. It happens there and then to trigger fundamental reactions: surprise, exhilaration, tension, uncertainty, laughter, ecstasy, tenderness.

Works like this don’t come from nowhere and Manifesto is informed by Lake’s formidable history as a performer and choreographer, nodding to past works of hers and others in an intricate web of associations if you care to look for them. These intimations and preoccupations enrich Manifesto but don’t change its effect. The meaning lies in what is felt emotionally and viscerally.

A scene from Manifesto at the Adelaide Festival

The curtain rises to show the full complement of 18 performers ready for action. The drummers are seated on a high tiered platform and the dancers on chairs below.

Lake has said she wanted a Busby Berkeley feel to the set (Charles Davis designed) but to these eyes there’s more of an RSL vibe. That’s a compliment. There’s nothing more democratic than a happy night out at the club.

A huge crash of sound from the drumming ensemble gets the audience starting and the dancers freezing. The rollercoaster ride begins.

Volume is an important element in Manifesto and not just in the obvious sense that nine drum kits are going to produce a fair few decibels (the sound level nevertheless could be deemed considerate). Putting 18 people on stage also opens up a lot of possibilities in terms of using space, particularly when half of them are elevated and always visible.

It’s such a treat when musicians are made central to a piece. The drummers don’t accompany Manifesto; they perform it, and how.

On opening night there were great whoops of delight from the audience after a series of solos showcased each drummer and there was no sweeter moment than when all dancers and musicians raised their arms simultaneously.

The nine dancers in Manifesto

That display of synchronicity is gone in a flash but flashes like that give a work its moods, textures and flavours. Manifesto overflows with memorable images in a dazzling array of groups, trios, duets and solos, some hyper-athletic, some quiet and introspective, others rather sexy.

And speaking of flashes, there’s a joyous rock’n’roll ending that’s pure genius.

The drumming sets the tone, sometimes occasioning martial unison formations or leading to more intimate interactions as Fox’s score becomes numinous and cloudy with injections of bell-like sounds.

The dancers may be buffeted by the sound, buoyed by it, organised or embraced by it but no matter what, all look individual and supremely gifted. Fabulous, too, in Paula Levis’s exceptionally flattering costumes. Everyone gets to change outfits at one point because – well, why not?

A scene from Manifesto

It may be unfair to single out a few dancers but Josie Weise and Samantha Hines were on fire on opening night. And how good to see the mighty Kimball Wong following his celebrated career with Australian Dance Theatre with this.

With so much positive energy on stage it’s hard to disagree with Lake’s assertion that Manifesto is an optimistic work. She couldn’t have foreseen just how much that quality would be needed right now.

Manifesto, by Stephanie Lake. Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide, March 17. RISING festival, Melbourne, June 9-12. The Australian was a presenting partner of the Adelaide season.