Two banks of seats flank a large, square dance floor filled with a six-by-six grid of cushioned spinning bar stools. The audience has a choice: seats or barstools. Needless to say, the barstools went quickly.
Lee Serle’s P.O.V. is a smashing bit of modern dance fun.
The work has three distinct sections. First, there is an exploration of flow and movement through the fixed points of the seated audience, set to the sort of staticky, atonal soundtrack that seems to be nearly compulsory in current works of modern dance. In this section, Serle’s choreography has a distinctly sporty feel to it, with many of the motions familiar to anyone who’s watched sportspeople warming up, or the particularly functional motions peculiar to so many sports. While Serle sees his grid of stools as architectural, urban and even civil engineering, and his dancers as reminiscent of traffic, I couldn’t help but be reminded of beep tests in high school PE. The vaguely 1980s sports outfits worn by Serle and his three fellow dancers, James Andrews, Kristy Ayre and Lily Paskas, adds to the impression.
In the second part, things get rather different. The artificial fourth wall (if it can be called such a thing when the audience is sitting in the middle of the stage) begins to crumble. Dancers begin to chat to each other. They begin to interact with audience members. Someone gets a back massage. A foot spa appears. It all gets rather silly. The giggles begin, and do not stop for quite some time.
The third short section returns to a more conventional dance form, with interesting inchworm micro-movements, but to be fair, the more conventional pieces in P.O.V. aren’t the most complex works of choreography, and the sections could probably have been more effectively united. P.O.V. is at its most interesting when it’s joyously exploring the possibilities of its own concept, when it stretches its wings beyond merely being a work of dance and when its dance forms go from macro to micro.
Among all the bits of semi-compulsory audience participation are some fascinating moments of contrast; as well as the performance itself, there’s a beautiful touch of lighting design, with downlighting underneath the stools now and then press-ganging the audience’s legs into an momentary eerie and fascinating tableau.
It’s impossible to ignore just how enjoyable this work is; it’s not often that one walks out of a work of modern dance and thinks ‘That was really fun’. But in this case, I think it is safe to say that a lovely time was had by all.
Rating: 3½ stars out of 5
P.O.V.
Director/Choreographer: Lee Serle
Performers/Collaborators: James Andrews, Kristy Ayre, Lily Paskas, Lee Serle
Lighting Designer: Ben Cisterne
Composition/Sound Designer: Luke Smiles
Set Designer: Lee Serle
Costume design: Lee Serle and Shio Otani, in collaboration with the performers
Production Management: Megafun
Arts House, North Melbourne Town Hall
12 – 16 March
Dance Massive 2013
dancemassive.com.au
12 – 24 March
