For his third major work since 2022 – following on from Petrushka (Game, Set, Match) and Bang! Bang! – Scott Elstermann has drawn his main inspiration for Foleyvision from what is arguably the epitome of ‘kick-up-your-heels, laugh-out-loud’ fun – the exuberant 1990s British comedy series Absolutely Fabulous (or Ab Fab to its legion of fans).
It’s a rare thing, but every once in while there is a contemporary dance artist who allows their sense of humour and their penchant for fun to override the more ‘serious’ expectations of their art form in a genre renowned for taking a rather high-minded (even po-faced) approach.
For Perth-based choreographer Elstermann – who is also the first ever Australian artist to win the prestigious Pina Bausch Fellowship for Dance and Choreography (in 2018) – contemporary dance is the perfect platform for him to explore some of the absurdities of our world and invite audiences in to join the party.
Growing up in what Elstermann describes as a very “BBC, ABC TV household”, the artist says Ab Fab has been close to his heart for years. Though it wasn’t until the COVID lockdowns of 2020 that he started seeing the show and its key characters as a vehicle through which he could creatively explore one of his other (more recently discovered) obsessions – the world of ‘Foley‘ sound.
For Elstermann, there is something intriguing about the behind-the-scenes work of Foley artists, and the way their methods – which are ultimately about creating immaculate recordings of sound effects for TV and film – require precise physical actions and movements that could easily be read as dance.
Thus, his latest work – fittingly titled Foleyvision – explored these interesting connections between the roles of the dance artist and the Foley sound artist and placed the viewer as a fly on the wall in a surreal sound studio to watch an episode of a TV comedy series (not unlike Ab Fab) be constructed before their eyes.
The three main performers in this show, dancers Bernadette Lewis, Giorgia Schijf and Nadia Priolo, were simply mesmerising as they executed Elstermann’s signature moves – which appear to be his own exacting take on the Cunningham technique with nods to other postmodern greats surfacing along the way – with incredible control.
Lewis, Schijf and Priolo also showed impressive range as they seamlessly transitioned from channelling postmodern minimalism to embodying their larger-than-life Ab Fab characters, when the work ultimately called on them to conjure Edina and Patsy’s champagne-clinking, air-kissing world in full blown Ab Fab mode.
It was a joy to watch them maintain their characters in these high-volume scenes of sparkle and fun.
And while this show involved a lot of exaggerated role-playing, it rarely went over the top. Instead, Foleyvision’s witty vignettes were layered with subtle signposts that pointed viewers to places of deeper reflection and spaces where we could ponder our existence in the wider world.
At one point we watched the work’s characters perform their roles in their rainbow-coloured costumes, prosthetic noses and lashing of stage make-up, while their faces contorted into expressions of plastered-on smiles and their mouths moved to pre-recorded dialogue. In this moment it was impossible not to relate these actions to the highly performative world in which we are living today – one where social media influencers practise variations of these routines with every post.
It was scenes like these, which appeared sporadically throughout the work, that planted seeds of curiosity, prompting us to reflect on the way we, as complex human beings, rarely share all our behaviours with the world.
Instead, we like to keep some of our most practised behaviours hidden and carry them out only in rituals we think of as being preparation for ‘the real show’.
On this note, the work’s excellent sound design by Rebecca Erin helped bring some of these deeper conceptual layers to the surface – whether it was through muffled voiceover dialogues that sat in the background of the main action, or via her more overt sound effect interventions, which complemented the movement on stage.
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And as the work reached its conclusion, it was clear its core intention had been to embrace some of the more joyful aspects of our world and bask in the funny sides of life. But in fact, Foleyvision’s strength lay in its capacity to go beyond this level of delightful entertainment, because it also revealed certain ambiguities that lie underneath.
Foleyvision
Subiaco Arts Centre, Perth
Choreographer: Scott Elstermann
Dancers: Bernadette Lewis, Giorgia Schijf, Nadia Priolo
Composer, Sound Designer and Foley Consultant: Rebecca Erin
Technical realisation: Edify Media
Lighting designer: Peter Young
Costume designer: Rhiannon Walker
Stage manager: Georgia Smith
Floor manager: Maree Cole
Camera operators and Audio mixers: Andrew Clarke, Joe Varley
Stagehands: Estelle Brown, Izzy Leclezio
Voiceover artists: Maree Cole, Bernadette Lewis, Nicole Ward
Producer: Brooke Leeder
Foleyvision was performed from 31 October – 3 November 2024.
