Dance Massive
Your guide to Melbourne’s festival of dance.
MELBOURNE’S ANNUAL FESTIVAL of dance (March 14-26) runs the gamut of major local choreographers and companies to emerging talent, with most of the works premieres. Shows are mostly about an hour in length, and take place at one of four venues: Meat Market, Arts House (North Melbourne Town Hall), Malthouse Theatre and Dancehouse. In 2017, the major companies presenting work are Chunky Move and Lucy Guerin Inc; new company the Farm (formed out of the members of Dancenorth, Splintergroup and Animal Farm Collective) is also one to watch. Notable independent choreographers presenting work include Nicola Gunn, Jo Lloyd, Victoria Hunt and Sandra Parker.
1 Piece for Person and Ghetto Blaster Piece for Person and Ghetto Blaster pushes the boundaries of what we typically expect dance theatre to look like. Performed by Nicola Gunn and co-devised by Gunn and Jo Lloyd, it’s inspired by an incident the former witnessed in Ghent: a man throwing rocks at a duck. Over the course of 70 minutes, we take a journey through Gunn’s experience and her subsequent reflections on the complex morality of the situation: what are the repercussions of intervening? All the while, her narrative is matched with increasingly frenetic choreography that often looks more like physical exercise. à Malthouse Theatre, 113 Sturt St, Southbank 3006. dancemassive.com. au. Tue-fri 8pm; Sat 2pm & 8pm; Sun Mar 26, 6pm. $30-$45. Mar 15-26.
2 Tiny Slopes Choreographer Nat Cursio ( Private Dances; The Middle Room) devised this work with four dancers as they learned to skateboard. The work explores the process of learning something new, both physical and mental, with each dancer paired with a tween skater. àmeat Market, via 36 Courtney St, North Melbourne 3051. dancemassive.com.au. Tue-sat 7pm. $25-$35. Mar 21-25.
3 Tangi Wai... The Cry of Water Dancer and choreographer Victoria Hunt enlists 12 female dancers to explore Maori cultural protocols around female authority, belonging, and the transformative power of water. Part installation and part dance theatre, the work combines mist, image and sound to conjure the spirit realm of Te Arai, and invites audience members into a environment of incantation and ritualistic movement. àmeat Market, via 36 Courtney St, North Melbourne 3051. dancemassive.com.aur. Tue-sat 7pm. $25$35. Mar 14-18.
4 Anti- Gravity In this new work by Chunky Move, gravity-bound human bodies are juxtaposed against clouds to explore the ways in which clouds are both foils and sublime phenomena within the human world. Research by video and installation artist Ho Tzu Nyen, who explored the history of clouds within art extensively for his multi-channel 2011 work
The Cloud of Unknowing, was the inspiration for Anti-gravity, which features choreography for six dancers by Chunky Move’s artistic director Anouk van Dijk. à Malthouse Theatre, 113 Sturt St, Southbank 3006. dancemassive.com.au. Wed-fri 7.30pm; Sat 3pm & 7.30pm; Sun 5pm. $30-$45. Mar 17-26.
5 Divercity Bundjalung/yaegl choreographer Mariaa Randall ( Blood on the Dance Floor; HA LF) devised Divercity with two dancerchoreographers from different Aboriginal countries: Henrietta Baird (a Kuku Yalanji woman whose country is in Far North Queensland, now living in Sydney) and Waiata Telfer (a NarunggaKaurna woman with British and Burmese ancestry, originally from Adelaide and now living in Melbourne). The starting point for the work was a question: When you live away from home and reside in the city, on someone else’s land, does it change your relationship to country? The two women explore the “complexities of a transplanted life” in a work that draws on their respective traditional culture and contemporary choreography, set against projections by sound and film artist Keith Deverell. Please note: there are different arrival/start times each night for women and men attending the performance. Wed-sat: women arrive for 8.45pm, men for 9pm. Sun: women arrive for 5pm, men for 5.15pm. ànorth Melbourne Town Hall, 521 Queensberry St, North Melbourne 3051. dancemassive.com.au. $25-$35. Mar 22-26.