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The Cry

Contemporary dance is a delicious beast.
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Co:3 Australia in The Cry. Photograph ​by Stefan Gosatti.

Co:3 is Western Australia’s newest contemporary dance company and is based in the elite King Street Arts Centre. Their first full length work, The Cry was performed over three evenings at the inaugural MoveMe Festival, showcased at the glitzy State Theatre Centre.

The Cry explores emotions that every audience member feels and responds to on a regular basis: anger, harmony, stoicism: a fixer upper, all designed to let the audience enter the performance and engage with the various emotional states, a connection which has heightened importance in this oft difficult to understand art form.

The Cry was first presented in 2010, when Choreographer Raewyn Hill was Artistic Director at DanceNorth. Being Co3’s first ‘full length’ piece, it is curious that they have chosen to re-stage a previous work, especially for a company that bills itself as ‘the state’s flagship contemporary dance company’ that contributes ‘a unique voice to the national cultural environment’ and is essentially headlining this new biennial festival, but I am attributing this to the company’s recent federal funding cuts. [It’s actually because part of the company’s remit is to ‘curate’ by breathing new life into old works. See our article Dancing up a storm in Perth – Ed.]

Another bizarre choice for a festival whose main purposes are to entice an extended audience and put contemporary dances literal best foot forward, is letting the choreographer do the set and costume design.

Oversized costuming hid the dancers bodies to an extent where it seemed to inhibit both the dancers mobility and our view of said movement, although the subtle colour range chosen did make a compelling visual statement when juxtaposed with the industrial simplicity of the set. Corrugated iron should be used more often as a backdrop as it works wonderfully, especially when placed alongside a beautiful white tarkett. The six dancers placed at various points across and between the 18 chairs provide striking images both when moving and still, although momentum is often lost as the dancers are seated as a spell of sorts is broken, but it is refreshing to see a company trial new entrances and exits in and out of the main floor and spotlight.

Dancers Kathryn Gurr, Mitch Harvey, Zachary Lopez, Talitha Maslin, Andrew Searle and Russell Thorpe are all relatively fresh to their careers and their motions are just as fresh, honest, primal and raw. At times the work descended into physical theatre rather than dance and bodies needed to be pushed into stronger formations, but 50 minutes is a long time for any dancer to be onstage and almost continuously in motion, so to watch these dancers and this company mature, is surely part of the fun. Perhaps if some positive emotions along the lines of joy or happiness were explored and intermixed with pain and anger, the contrast would have provided some relief from the heaviness for dancers and audience alike.

Eden Mulholland provided a live soundtrack from on stage, both in front of and from within the performance space, another feature not often employed by dance companies, lithely moving between different instruments and affecting and instigating dancers actions and reactions with the music. With the introduction of Mulhollands voice there was a touch of Cirque du Soleil as loop pedals, backing tracks and dancers fought for the spotlight but the overall soundtrack was a seductively powerful way to drive the dancers energy and move the show forward.

It was delightful to see a new company try so many new things and present them repeatedly to audiences that filled the grandiose State Theatre, and truly saw contemporary dance take the main stage, and cities focus for an extended period. The birth of a new company is not something that many audiences get to witness, so to watch Co:3 develop, learn, twist and forge their way into the main forum and scale the proverbial ladder will too be an exciting process.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5

The Cry

Co:3 Australia
State Theatre Centre of Western Australia
Created by Raewyn Hill

Part of the 2016 MoveMe Festival
15 – 17 September 2016

 

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Victoria Wyatt
About the Author
Victoria Wyatt has worked across the music/festival/theatre scenes in New York, London and Rome for the last 15 years. She is currently back in her hometown of Perth and can be found writing for Artshub, designing sets and interactive displays for children's/community events and stage/production managing around town. Victoria has worked across the music/festival/theatre scenes in New York, London and Rome for the last 15 years. She is currently back in her hometown of Perth and can be found writing for Artshub, designing sets and interactive displays for children's/community events and stage/production managing around town. Victoria has worked across the music/festival/theatre scenes in New York, London and Rome for the last 15 years. She is currently back in her hometown of Perth and can be found writing for Artshub, designing sets and interactive displays for children's/community events and stage/production managing around town. Victoria has worked across the music/festival/theatre scenes in New York, London and Rome for the last 15 years. She is currently back in her hometown of Perth and can be found writing for Artshub, designing sets and interactive displays for children's/community events and stage/production managing around town. Victoria has worked across the music/festival/theatre scenes in New York, London and Rome for the last 15 years. She is currently back in her hometown of Perth and can be found writing for Artshub, designing sets and interactive displays for children's/community events and stage/production managing around town. Victoria has worked across the music/festival/theatre scenes in New York, London and Rome for the last 15 years. She is currently back in her hometown of Perth and can be found writing for Artshub, designing sets and interactive displays for children's/community events and stage/production managing around town. Victoria has worked across the music/festival/theatre scenes in New York, London and Rome for the last 15 years. She is currently back in her hometown of Perth and can be found writing for Artshub, designing sets and interactive displays for children's/community events and stage/production managing around town.