Image: Delta Project Under My Skin; Photograph by Pippa Samaya.
Under My Skin leaves no sense untouched despite bringing together an audience and performers who are both hearing and deaf. Using dance, projection and tactile sound it weaves together a moving and powerful exploration of identity with the inclusive and exclusive spaces that its diverse elements imply.
This was impact-performance from the moments the lights dimmed. Russel Goldsmith’s shuddering soundtrack was one to be felt rather than heard and created a tense and active air that held the performances dramatic tension constant throughout. Along with Rhian Hinkley’s brilliant projections and lighting by Richard Vabre, Under My Skin was able to fill up and hold a large and austere space while creating a world of subtle and intricately crafted motifs.
This great strength is also the source of one of its few weaknesses. When the action moved to the outskirts of the stage or during more static periods of the performance, the beautiful and voluminous negative space that set off the performers themselves begins to feel empty and overpowering. But it’s a rare occurrence and for the most part the staging is clever and well-executed.
One particularly interesting aspect of this was how the very front of the stage remained unused for almost the entire show but when it was, the impact factor came full circle and the restraint shown throughout the rest of the performance was all the more impressive.
The performers themselves were fantastic combining and separating magnificently to form single entities of distorted beauty and individuals who, even when in conflict, retained the air of connection. Sign language was seamlessly incorporated into the potent dance orations that members of the audience who both did and didn’t recognise the individual words could easily comprehend. Their energy, their poise and their raw emotive power was a thrill to behold.
Props, like so many of the supporting elements, were given a life of their own through Jo Dunbar and Lina Limosani’s intriguing choreography that paid due attention to both the individual and collective performers and stages of the show. From body morphing latex to rapid-fire costume changes, Under My Skin is never repetitive in either structure or choreography and seems to course with vitality transmitted on the reverberations of the score.
The tensions associated with boundaries weren’t presented as simple binaries in which you’re either in or out, rather as semipermeable barriers that we never fully pass through. Under My Skin doesn’t simply ask the severely overused ‘Who are you?’, it presents identity as series of fractured, dynamic but ultimately overlapping parts, whose various combinations will block us from passing through different barriers at different times. It’s a wholly uncertain point of view but one that is without doubt more satisfying than glib, static and binary definitions.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Under My Skin
Jo Dunbar – Choreographer, Company Co-founder
Lina Limosani – Choreogrpaher
Anna Seymour – Dancer, Company Co-Founder
Amanda Lever – Dancer
Elvin Lam – Dancer
Luigi Vescio – Dancer
Rhian Hinkley – New Media Artist
Richard Vabre – Lighting Designer
Russel Goldsmith – Composer and Sound Designer
Next Wave Festival
Arts House, North Melbourne
5–8 May
