TAKING SIDES

DANCE

14 Nov

Recently landed: Taking Sides

Gracia’s written response to Rudi van der Merwe’s Trophy presented by Dancehouse, for Fjord Review.

‘Ping’. ‘Tink’. ‘Chick-o-wee’. In the late afternoon, Quarries Park, Clifton Hill, is a wonderful chorus of bird calls and a whirl of neighbourhood activity. The sun doesn’t set for another two hours yet. The golden light where everything appears rimmed by a halo or to glow softly is approaching. In anticipation, the high-pitched trills and the soft churring ‘kreeeark’ of birds. And at the foot of the park, a knot of people gathers for Rudi van der Merwe’s Trophy, presented by Dancehouse as part of swiss.style, a focus on dance from Switzerland for the first ten days of November. In the distinctive plumage of raincoats and with umbrellas in hand, we may not rival the tight squadrons of Rainbow lorikeets, but we’re undeterred by the weather: rain, rain, all day, rain.

But the rain has stopped, for now, as we gather at the still-green parkland that links the Main Yarra and Merri Creek trails with the screeching and chattering of lorikeets and the distinctive warble of Australian magpies. A park, at the close of day, after the rain, is active. It is Saturday. It is spring. With the promise of Swiss. Dancehouse has grouped a selection of Geneva-based artists to present a series of works which, as stated in the swiss.style program, “interrogate complex notions of identity, shared heritage, tradition and the desire to demarcate, possess, tame or exploit the environment and the self.” What’s a little sogginess underfoot? Proceed all, with your prop of choice.

Trophy is a site-specific performance which “explores man’s relationship with his environment, the need to demarcate, possess, tame and exploit. This relationship is not limited to nature, but also to his fellow man. New battle lines are drawn, and new identities take shape as humankind encounters the limits to this world view.” As such, perhaps it began as a performance by the act of us assembling in nature. Just as the performers in Trophy declare in the synopsis that they will “conquer a field like an invading army, adopting postures of trophy wives, hunted animals and ghosts from bygone wars,” as we walk as a group from the designated meeting point to the performance frontier, notions of demarcation as we take ‘our’ place in the park ring out. A long blue marquee has been set up at the end of the park to enable the audience to shelter as they view/engage, and for drummer Béatrice Graf to perform her part or with sound retaliate to the three performers, Claire-Marie Ricarte, József Trefeli, and Rudi van der Merwe.