REVIEW | ‘Expressive depth and spirit’ – Dance Australia
16 September 2024
Martha Graham once claimed that “the life of a dancer is short” before conceding that “I am not an example of that”, with Graham herself still dancing in her sixties beside much younger members of her company. This has largely remained the pattern in Western concert dance (with the notable exception of Netherlands Dance Theatre 3). Some of the legends of dance may perform into their mature years, but the majority retire by their forties. The recent production from Momentum Dance, auspiced by CO3 dance company, and staged under the title Momentum Unveiled, is immediately appealing in rejecting these agist tendencies. Momentum Unveiled consists of three short works showcasing sixteen mature dancers, 14 of whom are women and two men.
Choreographer Storm Helmore’s Sharing Space is the simplest of the three works, and arguably the most successful. It consists principally of the dancers posing, arms framing the body or curved up and outwards to give dynamism to the momentarily paused form. Although there are some kneeling positions, the majority of the choreography is performed standing.
Helmore and the dancers developed the choreography by comparing early morning routines, and this balance of lethargy with rising energy gives the piece its appeal. Towards the end of the piece, they almost get funky, swinging their hips in between turns and shifts.
All of the dancers are fine, but Julie Doyle is particularly strong in Sharing Space and indeed across the three works in the program, maintaining a sense of magnetic presence while still enacting each movement in an unhurried manner expressive of her age and experience, her steely grey eyes casting out with solemn authority.
Choreographer Liz Cornish’s Wrinkles has a more complicated setting, with five white ropes strung horizontally across the back wall, initially tense as in a musical stave, and then sagging as the piece evolves. Harpist Anthony Maydwell sits to one side and slightly back, providing the music which these staves might hold. The choreography is somewhat more demanding than the previous piece, with a number of solos and small groupings giving the work a noticeable if restrained sense of drive as arms sweep wide. At the mid point of the piece, Andrew Hull performs a complicated gestural solo, legs bent and arms sculpting obtuse lines sideways.
Here, as elsewhere in all three works, there are Grahamesque acts of running across the stage, leading through the chest, arms gently spread behind in one’s wake, scattering and then gathering the energy of the ensemble. The theme of contemplating one’s own wrinkles only really emerges towards the end of Cornish’s contribution, where hands gently rise to the faces of fellow dancers expressing a sense of shared empathy and respect.
The evening concludes with Evgenia Plotkin Mikhailov’s Purple Patch, which is the most choreographically demanding of the three. Arabesques or near arabesques emerge briefly, as do moments of dancers rising as if on pointe, while there are other sections where the line of the dancer, often curled asymmetrically, is crucial to the readability and demarcation of gesture, as in ballet and Graham. Despite these demands, the dancers acquit themselves well, with the taut form of Hayley Schmidt especially excelling in in dramatically carving up the space.
Given that much of the choreography has a slightly Martha-Graham-esque feel, it is perhaps not surprising that this rare and rewarding opportunity to see mature bodies on stage still reflects the tensions reflected in the statement from Graham I began with above. There is a tendency across the three pieces of Momentum Unveiled, especially in the work of Cornish and Mikhailov, to aspire to technical precision and muscular definition. The dancers generally attain this when required, but it is a hard ask, and the otherwise softer, lyrical movement gives more space to allow their personal idiosyncrasies and developments to contribute to, rather than limit, the choreography.
On opening night, the Welcome to Country was given by senior Noongar custodian Vaugh McGuire. Despite his unassuming appearance, his voice rang out with stunning power and authority. Watching Momentum Unveiled, I sometimes compared the dancers on stage to some of the mature Indigenous dance experts I have seen perform, such as Barry McGuire (Noongar Wonderland, 2022), long term Bangarra member Djakapurra Munyarryun, and others. Their dance may or may not exhibit clean lines, but it is not formal precision that makes it great, but rather the depth of knowledge and spiritual power of the dancer. Ironically Graham, often stated that she saw the essence of dance in not dissimilar terms, as an expression of the heart which technique merely serves, while Mikhailov states in the program that she sees Purple Patch as a dance powered by a sense of “Freedom”, inspired by a passage of written by Hassidic scholar, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov.
Momentum’s dancers certainly exhibit an expressive depth and spirit. I am however not sure the company has yet found choreographic strategies to show the dancers at their best. I look forward to Momentum’s next production.
– Jonathan W. Marshall