A NIGHT OF IDEAS

DANCE

12 Mar

Recently landed: A Night of Ideas

Gracia’s written response to Rosalind Crisp noticing the little things at the NGV as part of The Night of Ideas (La Nuit des Idées), especially for Fjord Review.

Past the Gallery Kitchen, which for tonight has become an open mic Poets Café, I swim through the swirling 100-metre-long, multi-panelled Mun-Dirra (Maningrida Fish Fence), woven by 13 Burarra women weavers, which hovers above the floor and makes the gallery a waterway. I arrive to find Rosalind Crisp in the moment before the first of her two ten-minute performances, behind artist Hugh Hayden’s salvaged wood classroom ecosystem. Map still in my hand, for the locating of events communicating not just with the voice, but with the body, through dance, I am at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), after hours, for The Night of Ideas (La Nuit des Idées), an initiative of the French Embassy in partnership with the NGV and the Institut Français, taking place in various locations on the ground level of the NGV’s Triennial. Crisp’s legs and feet are instantly recognisable behind the blackboard of Hayden’s The End. Hidden in plain sight from both the extinct dodos in the installation and the wandering audience, a water bottle and a Guest Artist gallery lanyard by her feet, the gallery as a dance venue presents a distinct challenge. She pads the space, and I think about how hard it must be when the backstage is improvised.

In the neighbouring gallery space, where Crisp will soon be performing, CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere principal research scientist, Karen Evans is in conversation with musician and writer, Wilfred N’Sondé. In keeping with the theme of the night, Fault Lines, they are discussing the fault lines in our seas. Looking at my watch, their conversation will spill into Crisp’s performance. In the doorway, now watching, Crisp checks to see when they might end and she’ll begin, such is the organic nature of a night of ideas encouraged to flow, and I am reminded of seeing Crisp standing just inside the doorway of the Upstairs Studio space at Dancehouse before the performance officially began. As the audience makes their way into the room, weaving past her, the sense of being hidden in plain sight is amplified. A small sign by the door reads ‘Dance Performance: Rosalind Crisp’ alongside the scheduled times. Crisp, denoted by a sign, unbeknownst to the many, now reminding me of a lyrebird I saw by their signage on a forest trail. The lyrebird raked at the leaf litter at his feet, making a stage just as Crisp quietly toes at the gallery earth. Then and now, a stage transpires, and the sense that the performance has already begun at its advertised time, once I open my eyes.