Photo: Julieta Cervantes, Adelaide Festival of Arts
Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet’s Orbo Novo retells the story of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, who suffered a stroke at the height of her neuroanatomy career and had the rare opportunity to study her own ailing brain, from the inside out. Upon realising that she was experiencing a stroke, Bolte Taylor’s first reaction was ‘cool!’, which is also an excellent way to describe Cedar Lake’s interpretation.
Taylor argues that the right side of the brain, the side that lives in the present and takes its focus outward from the individual, is one of our most valuable assets, and that the more ‘right-brained’ we become as a society, the more peaceful we will be.
This whole, complicated concept would be incredibly difficult to tell with just dance; no matter how expressive and innovative a choreographer is, details like Taylor trying to call her office for help, forgetting what numbers look like and having to match the scribbles from her business card to the scribbles on her telephone would be difficult to convey with movement alone. The performing company of Cedar Lake read excerpts of Bolte Taylor’s work, My Stroke of Insight as a spoken word piece, stepping, speaking and gesticulating with an unnerving unison as the Mosaic String Quartet provide a synchronised and swelling score.
This was certainly necessary – it brings the dance work from something incomprehensible to a piece where the overall narrative, if not the tiny details of the choreography, could be easily conveyed to any audience member. However, using the spoken word only at the beginning of the piece, in a large block rather than spaced evenly through the production, makes the remaining danced portions of the performance seem unfocused; it is difficult to tell whether the corps are telling the story chronologically or thematically.
The choreography itself was flowing, earthy and exciting. Ballet purists will spy classical elements such as plies and pas des chats, as well as the obvious classical training that enables the dancers to execute such feats of balance and strength, while choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui also draws from hip-hop, lyrical dance, and even the animal kingdom to form a distinct style. When Bolte Taylor had her stroke she temporarily lost her ability to access language, and Cherkaoui’s portrayal of this feeling, of being surrounded by white noise and trapped within yourself, is a choreographic highlight of the production.
Technically and emotively, the dancers are powerful and agile; it’s difficult to fault them on their execution. The modern work eschews the traditional corps, allowing each dancer to have a moment to showcase their unique style. While there were no real climactic moments for the dancers to show off what would have undoubtedly been incredible jumps and energy, each dancer’s individual approach to the grounded and subtle choreography helps the audience see each dancer as a person, rather than the faceless corps de ballet so often found in large dance casts.
The set, consisting of a large, malleable grid structure, is aesthetically simple yet astoundingly versatile, transforming from a backdrop to a cage to barriers that visually divide the space. The dancers climb up, down, around and through the rigging, as well as moving it around the stage themselves, rather than using the stage crew. The concept is simple, clean and effective, though it would have been great to see them use the higher parts of the rigging more often and occupy more of the vertical space, particularly in a stage as expansive as the Festival Theatre’s.
Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet’s offerings this year have formed an excellent addition to the Adelaide Festival. While light on dynamics, the spoken word and accessible subject matter help create a performance that is universally appealing, regardless of ones fluency in dance; after all who doesn’t wish they could see inside the human brain?
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Orbo Novo
Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet
Choreographer: Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui
Performed by: Patrick Coker, Jon Bond, Nickemil Concepcion, Vânia Doutel Vaz, Joseph Kudra, Navarra Novy-Williams, Raymond Pinto, Guillaume Quéau, Matthew Rich, Ida Saki, Joaquim de Santana, Rachelle Scott, Ebony Williams, Jin Young Won and Madeline Wong
Assistants to the Choreographer: James O’Hara, Alexandra Damiani
Lighting Design: Jim French
Scenic Design: Alexander Dodge
Costume Design: Isabelle Lhoas
Costume Design Assistant: Frederic Denis
Music: Szymon Brzóska, performed by the Mosaic String Quartet
Text: Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor from her original work, My Stroke of Insight
Adelaide Festival Theatre
7–8 March
Adelaide Festival of Arts 2015
www.adelaidefestival.com.au
27 February – 15 March
