A two-night performance featuring the work of 20 different individuals, Action/Response – presented as part of Dance Massive – consisted of two one-hour-long ‘unfoldings’ scattered through the streets of North Melbourne, mainly on public sites around Queensbury Street, where Arts House is situated, and Errol Street. The sites chosen included a median strip, pavement, cafe, alley way, traffic junction and a corner shop, Aesop.
The event was described in the program as a ‘self-guided tour’. It was more of a chaotic treasure hunt. Eagerly reading their distinctive orange programs, dance enthusiasts scurried with a certain panicked step from event to event, many of them wearing a shared look of perturbed confusion.
The Friday and Saturday night programs were comprised of different works, so each night was a singular and unrepeatable event, linked by the thematic provocation issued to the artists: ‘turning’ on Friday, and ‘falling’ on Saturday.
Around Aesop’s huge glass windows, a large audience gathered and peered through with much anticipation. Here was housed a performance of Shelley Lasica’s Hallo, featuring two dancers whose synchronised movements carried them around the interior of the shop. The crowd watched the two performers’ measured dance movements in respectful silence; the performers seemed to stare back flatly.
Bianca Hester’s Approaching & departing four grounds took place in the Lithuanian Club; I believe it had moved location from the exterior alley earlier in the hour. Huge blue steel rings, much like hoopla rings, only larger, were spun on the floor, carefully weighted to ensure a hypnotically long spinning time; when they finally fell, they did so with a spectacular clatter. It was entertaining and again, conceptually simple. It appeared to relax the people who wandered in and out of the performance space.
Oliver Mann’s 15 minute performance in a cafe, Round and round, was absurdist and affecting. A blend of storytelling and musical performance, Mann’s rich, trained singing voice and brave, audacious stories, told direct to the audience in a confined space, was occasionally heart-stopping. There was a bravery and beauty to the piece that was quite moving. Mann’s story was not compelling in its content, but his nervousness and slippery intent was.
Mounted on the median strip was a temporary art show referencing an earlier era when a TAB – now demolished – stood opposite the site. The artist, Lane Cormick, had once won money on the jockey whose face he depicted on the series of placards comprising the work, entitled BPNM. Many of the audience sat down on the grass of the median strip and started chatting as the traffic went by. Arts House staff spent much time and energy trying to usher people off the road, prompting irritated glares from many.
Soon 7pm was upon us and the hour of art was over. I overheard one audience member say, ‘I feel like I have been missing everything for an hour’. Their philosophically inclined companion replied, ‘Yeah, that’s what life feels like isn’t it? Like you are constantly missing the good stuff.’
Action/Response
Presented by Arts House and Hannah Mathews
Conceived by: Hannah Mathews
Artists: Natalie Abbott, Alex Akers, Deanne Butterworth, Lane Cormick, Daniel Crooks, Alicia Frankovich, Nathan Gray, Bianca Hester, Laresa Kosloff, Kyle Kremerskothen, Shelley Lasica, Katie Lee, Jo Lloyd, Oliver Mann, Gabrielle Nankivell, Patrick Pound, Ria Soemardjo, Brooke Stamp, Danae Valenza, Tony Yap
Errol Street and environs, North Melbourne
22 March
Dance Massive 2013
dancemassive.com.au
12 – 24 March
