We saw this play last night at Carriageworks in Redfern. This multi-platform performing arts centre is a collection of magnificent one hundred year plus industrial buildings where a sense of a bygone era impacts upon one strongly.
This venue is a an appropriate place for a philosophic analysis of time via movement and sound. Time..the present as the interstice, the space between the past and the future…The present as the vortex through which the past moves to become the future. Time as a consciousness of the present through which we move…in constant transition from memory to anticipation.
A fine Belgium ensemble, conducted by Georges-Elle Octors, played reflective and contemplative music in an acoustically perfect, vast concrete space.
This was not a performance for everyone. The music was atonal, striking, layered…a cacophony of tone and timbre. Dancers moved to it in a rhythm at once provocative and unpredictable, graceful and free flowing.
An English reviewer , Mark Monahan of The Telegraph UK described the performance as “narcoleptic” and described a member of the audience wanting to leave in such a hurry that he almost tripped, giving the impression of throwing himself through the wall in his eagerness to depart.
VORTEX TEMPORIUM is after all a Sydney Festival event, so audiences did expect something out of the ordinary. To the contrary of Mr Monahan’s observation, on this night many members of the audience lingered to give these dedicated dancers and musicians a sustained applause.
This was a joint Belgium /Australian production. It was more introverted than what we are used to. The production was given a refreshing touch by the work of Australian choreographer, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker.
The work at Carriageworks continues to excite our imagination and our sense of space.
This show will challenge your ideas about music and movement.
VORTEX TEMPORIUM will challenge your ideas of time music and movement. This production is playing at Carriageworks until the January 18.