The Melbourne Festival gives us the world premiere of Hofesh Shecter’s Sun, performed by the UK based Hofesh Shechter Company. The dance opens with a piece of its ending – reassuring us that this pilgrimage into wonder will have a happy, or at least a comfortable, ending. This, as it turns out is somewhat misleading. Sun is a wonderfully surprising work, full of unexpected wit and some delectable imagery. Before it begins the dancers are stock still, paused to take in the audience, observing, testing, silent and watchful.
With music composed mostly by Shechter, Sun hearkens back to the life of the village, where community is all and safety depends on the group’s alertness to threats from outside. A mad magician/village shaman alternately challenges and leads the dancers in ballets, ensembles and group folk dances with rhythmic stops, starts and sudden changes of pace and mood. The aesthetic of the piece is reminiscent of a village fete or a pantomime or a masked ball, or a Punch and Judy show in a town square. The characters come from a toy box or could be figurines in a musical box. With the 16 performers costumed in muted creams, greys and taupes, with one red bandana, and a simple set with something like a castle wall forming a backdrop, the overall look is subdued while the music is driving, insistent, volatile, at times raw yet anthemic, preventing any charges of sweetness or bucolic nostalgia. The wolf is always behind you.
Incongruous melodies, a trumpet playing a jazz riff or a segment of Renaissance chamber music, are set against North African tribal rhythms making for some astonishing musical juxtapositions. There are suggestions of devotional music, neo-punk arrangements; there is power and muscle in the score, it’s loud and demanding without being alienating. The dancers break into groups or move singly, sometimes in harmony, at others interrupting each other, often in line in a hora or hasapiko and even a conga.
Sun spans a variety of moods. There is humor and whimsy at play and some dramatic narrative tension referencing stories of invasion and colonisation. Old fashioned drawings of sheep, a menacing wolf, a European explorer and tribesmen mounted on boards carried by the dancers populate the stage, creating a sub-story of fear and menace. A woman screams in terror. Timing is intriguing, although the work is cut up into pieces and shifts abruptly, moments are given for the audience to take in the images which are left to briefly settle in memory. On occasion Sun references, in a small goosestepping nod, the history of the Holocaust yet the work is speaking to a universal shared experience of ‘everything under the Sun’ and to collective memories of living in small interdependent and vulnerable communities.
A great silhouette of orange brings the sun into the space. Sun tells big stories with a small cast, with humor and boldness. A lovely work with strong elements of surprise throughout.
4 stars out of 5
Sun at Melbourne Festival
12 October 2013
Choreography and Music: Hofesh Shechter
Set Design: Merle Hensel
Lighting Design: Lee Curran
Costume Design: Christina Cunningham
Dancers: Maeva Berthelot, Winifred Burnet-Smith, Chien-Ming Chang, Sam Coren, Frederic Despierrre, Bruno Guillore, Philip Hulford, Yeji Kim, Kim Kohlman, Erion Kruja, Merel Lammers, Sita Ostheimer, Marla Phelan, Attila Ronai, Diogo de Sousa, Hannah Shepherd
11-16 October
Photo Credit: Leah Robertson
