Originally a Stompin dance work and now an exhibition, Ground Beneath/Ocean Between is currently on display at Queen Victoria Museum and Arts Gallery (QVMAG) Royal Park in Launceston.
In 2022, Stompin commemorated its 30th year with the creation of a short dance film titled 30. That project brought together 30 Stompin dancers including alumni, current main company members and primary aged dancers. Collaborating with local cinematographer Scott Atkins of Lusy Productions, the dancers travelled to diverse locations across Tasmania, chosen by them for their personal significance.
According to the Queen Victoria Museum and Arts Gallery (QVMAG) exhibition signage, these sites hold “profound social, political and historical importance within … [the] community.” Through exploration of these places, the dancers developed site-specific choreography highlighting the textures of each unique landscape.
In this beautiful film, now screening in one of the darkened upstairs galleries at QVMAG, Tasmanian landscapes are inhabited by dancers filmed both from close and at a distance. Their bodies interact with the elements of water, wind, rock and sand.
As a separate but strongly related project, last month the larger and brighter Gallery 9 next door hosted the 2024 performance Ground Beneath|Ocean Between for five performances. Presented in Junction Arts Festival, this work seems to have developed out of 30 and is a combination of dance and video, accompanied by a sound score by Anna Whitaker.
Ground Beneath|Ocean Between utilised very similar landscape footage projected on its large white walls, but without the inclusion of the dancers. Instead, the dancers were very present in the Gallery, occupying the large open space and moving around a collection of white plinths, stacked together as in a ziggurat style mountain.
Individual performers of the 17-strong group focused on their hands, outlining shapes, while executing simple balances. Dressed in granite grey with flashes of pinkish orange, the dancers gathered on the plinths. The audience was free to move around and slowly shift to circle them. Projections lit the faces of the blocks and the dancers’ bodies with images of waves, water and grasses.
As a group they performed a series of eight or more shapes. Perhaps these shapes represented different landscapes or formations? One dancer now linked with others and a series of softening, melting connections rippled through the group. They took each other’s weight, leaned and spread out using each other’s bodies to grow upwards.
Images of the grey-green bush and coral rock surrounded the dancers as they shifted from wave-like climbing to rolling and gently falling. The audience was offered a series of images for personal interpretation: stretching, arching, rippling, root-like tentacles, delicate spiralling hands. The projections shifted from running water to pink granite rock, tall trees to grasslands. Both audience and dancers seemed mesmerised by the imagery.
The plinths were now manipulated shifting the focus to individual dancers. Small, coloured lights were placed on the floor at the other end of the Gallery and the dancers sat near them. The audience gradually shifted its focus and moved in closer. Lights were moved in snake-like formations. Sometimes these lines broke up as individuals showed the way.
In contrast, the wall projections now showed water crashing on rocks. The dancers spread out, the momentum of their movement increased as did the intensity of the music. The dancers rippled in a gathered circle, arching curving and drawing lines in space. There was a clear action and reaction movement through the group. This twisting built throughout the group until one or two broke the intensity, running around the group while others leaned towards each other in small groups.
They were running, catching, leaning and building energy in a large group, circling motion around individuals at the core. Taking more individual paths, they grouped momentarily, and the running became jumping then individual spinning slowed to stillness.
The projections shifted to a dark sky with stars. The group gathered as if around a campfire using percussive sounds on the timber floor. There was a mysterious connection between the lights and the group. Once this moment was broken, small groups moved through the audience changing our focus. We were drawn by barely audible voices shifting around the large space. A soloist seemed to be describing the space and enclosed shapes. Water in the projections was reflected in the weaving motions of the dancers. The group moved as one.
Texture and were key elements. Whether rock, water or waves of grasses, there was repetition, variation and a general ebb and flow. As the rhythms strengthened, unison movement and stronger actions dominated but even then, the dancers focused in different directions.
The dancers and audiences have gone, but, along with the screenings of 30, QVMAG will continue to host these large-scale ‘uninhabited’ digital projections, depicting shifting landscapes and textures video projections, until next month.
As the program notes suggest, “By bringing the images of nature into the gallery, framing the environment as art, we ask what is gained and what is lost?”
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This will be the last piece presented by Stompin under the Artistic Direction of Caitlin Comerford, who is stepping down after a highly successful eight and a half years guiding this regional youth dance company.
Ground Beneath|Ocean Between, Queen Victoria Museum and Arts Gallery (QVMAG) Royal Park presented as a part of Junction Arts Festival
Artistic Director: Caitlin Comerford
General Manager: Rachel Moore
Artistic Associate: Gabriel Comerford
Guest Choreographer: Liesel ZinkÂ
Projection and Exhibition Designer: Troy Merritt
Guest Choreographer and Stomper Mentor: Ebony Nichols
Sound Designer and Mentor: Anna Whitaker
Youth Project Leader: Amy Baillie
Workshop Leader, Dance and Visual Art: Keia McGrady
Cinematographer: Scott Atkins
Production Manager: James Costin
Ground Beneath|Ocean Between was performed on 18-22 September at the Art Gallery at Royal Park.
The exhibition of Ground Beneath|Ocean Between and screening of 30 will run until 3 November 2024 in Art Gallery at Royal Park, Gallery 9.
