Review: Melbourne Spawned a Monster

Melbourne Spawned a Monster

Dancehouse as a part of Dance Massive

Choreographed and Directed by Jo Lloyd

Performed by Luke George

Music by Duane Morrison

Set by Rob McCredie

It’s an alarming space you enter at Danceworks for Melbourne Spawned a Monster. Hazard tape slung about, a huge plywood monolith in front of you. Turns out it’s the back of the steeply raked seating bank – seats pushed right up against the stage. The lighting is dim. Dimmer than dim, the kind of dim that pixelates your vision, as your brain fruitlessly attempts to compensate for the lack of visual information it has to process and makes stuff up instead.

And then it is dark as dark can be, the kind of dark in which you can trick yourself into not being sure if your eyes are open or not.

Out of nowhere: the peculiarly identifiable sound of tennis balls being bounced off a wall and falling into the audience. What was going on is amazingly clear, considering that it was one of the most unlikely things to have happened. Scattered laughter rose up from the audience. It really was what was happening. It was one of the most joyously playful ways to break the fourth wall on one hand and alienate the audience on the other.

I regrettably missed the original incarnation of Melbourne Spawned a Monster which premiered at Danceworks in September 2008. (Read Chris Boyd’s lucid review here, after you’ve finished with my ramblings you will crave lucidity. Trust me, you will.)

And having only seen Luke George’s performance of the work (and this in no way denigrates his interpretation, for it was glorious. Yes, glorious) I find myself yearning to be able to compare it with that of the piece’s Choreographer and Director, Jo Lloyd, who for matters I know not of, was not performing this time around.

I suppose this desire of mine to have seen her can be broken down thus: a) I’m having a hard time imagining anyone other than Luke George performing Melbourne Spawned a Monster. (This in itself may be either because he was very, very good and inhabited the work totally, or because my imagination is woefully limited). b) I think a woman’s performance may have absolutely re-contextualised the work. Although, perhaps her performance wouldn’t have re-contextualised the work,

Perhaps George’s performance was sort of genderless (which now that I mention it I think it may have been). Not genderless so much as not really masculine. (I mean masculine in the broadest possible manner.) And perhaps Lloyd’s performance was similarly androgynous.

Hmm. I think I need to back up the truck here. In my youth I craved a certain kind of male role model, one who was comfortable with his masculinity, one who could be poetic and graceful and humble and self-deprecating and not be competitive or protean, not needing to always prove his masculinity, one in whom the presence of softness and sensitivity needn’t mean femininity – it just didn’t really mean anything. I didn’t consciously crave this. Its wasn’t as if I was knocking about as an eight year old testing the men in my life on their verse, line, and emotional maturity, I think I became aware of the limitations implicit in the notion of “The Australian Male” early. This was the eighties. One had two choices a) Warwick Capper b) Bernard King.

I think what I’m trying to say here is that Luke George displayed the kind of humanity that is all encompassing. His unchallenging, passive, yet commanding gaze was disarming and reassuring. It was another way in which the performance toyed with the audience and both alienated you and brought you closer to itself.

This was a proscenium show. From the front of which dangled strings of LED lights, illuminating both the performer and the audience and drawing our attention to the divide and when it was being crossed. He is us. He’s with us. The LED light reflected on a simple, kitsch, ingenious backdrop of the Melbourne skyline, defined only by its windows, cut out of foil.

The choreography made little sense to me intellectually (as I’ve said before, I have no dance background, apart from tap-dancing lessons in a West Brunswick church hall with three middle-aged women. Not the most thorough preparation, I’ll admit) yet as it passed I was struck by its playfulness, its humour, its familiarity and its lack of equilibrium.

Duane Morrison’s perfectly realised music leant a pulse and a twitch to Luke George’s movements, reminding me of Harryhausen’s stop-motion skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts:

Or, perhaps more to the point:

Melbourne Spawned a Monster is a wonderfully original piece of work.

Review: Sunstruck

Sunstruck

Concept collaboration Helen Herbertson & Ben Cobham

Season Ended

What with all the excitement I have completely neglected to write about 'Sunstruck'. In case you have missed aforementioned ruckus see here and here. Read the comments and be excited for me. This is a big deal in the life of this fledgling little venture.

So, it's late in the game, the season has ended and it sold out. Do you really want to hear about another show that you probably missed?

Years ago, when I was living in Sydney, I used to regularly catch the train to Central Station. The train would always pull up at the same platform. The platform would be on the train's left. Once, however, the train pulled up to a different platform. The platform was on the train's right. I hadn't yet noticed the anomaly. When I 'alighted' from the train I strode confidently off in the absolute wrong direction, because, you see, I was walking in the direction I was used to going in: stepping off the train, onto the platform and turning to my left.

It wasn't until I was about half way down the platform that I computed that something was wrong. I stopped. And I has this amazing dislocating sensation of the world correcting its position in my perception. Directionally, everything was opposite to what I had thought. 

That was back in the day when I still had totally unfounded confidence in my sense of direction. Is it something men are born with - not the actual sense itself - but the absolute belief in it? I only recently accepted (with the gentle prodding of my companion) that my sense of direction is terrible. I actually get lost regularly. Melbourne's grid is a blessing to someone like me, it gently supports and encourages my locational ability. But then you find yourself riding to shed 4 in Docklands. Unbelievably, I found my way there okay.

'Sunstruck' appealed immensely to my general sense of discombobulation. Space was gently created and destroyed, distance and perspective were both teased. Spacial awareness was manipulated and stimulated.

The simplicity with which 'Sunstruck' seemed to gently bend both space and time is a credit to its intelligence.

Emotionally I was somewhat devastated by this piece. It just seemed to encompass everything about men and joy and inexorable tragedy and struggle and continuation and children and inevitable loss and sadness and wisdom and compassion. It was one of the most empathetic pieces I have ever seen. 

I'm not really going to add anything that Messrs. Boyd and Born Dancin' haven't already spoken of apart from rejoicing in the skill involved in evoking so much with so little - one light. Its simplicity was its greatest tool and one which it used with unbelievable viruosity.

Emerging into the night with my tear-streaked cheeks I found I had parked my bike on a mummified squashed rat. 

And then I got lost.

There... I've said it.

I must now impart to you my reasons for airing my thoughts through such a public forum as this.

It really began as a whim. Actually not so much a whim as a fit. A fit of impotent rage brought about by what has been, for me, a tough year. I needed to be heard. I needed to be honest and transparent. I needed to have an obligation to objectively and subjectively reflect. Reflect upon what I've witnessed, what I've heard and what I'm going through. 

It has, as I said, been a tough year. 

Masculine nonchalance tells me that it thickens my skin, toughens me up, engenders me to be more able to cope with a life in the arts. And I hope that this is true. It does not, however, stop me from being sad, exhausted, filled with self-doubt and loathing, bitter, angry and envious. And lets face it, who, in this line of work, hasn't honestly felt these things from time to time?This racket tends to require irrational degrees of self-belief which I simply don't possess - and nor will I pretend to. 

I've always been a spectacular failure at protecting myself. I always get my hopes up, I always tell everyone what I'm applying for and get excited. I always set myself up for a fall. And I can feel this changing. I've begun to get secretive about my hopes and desires. I've begun to withhold information from the people closest to me. I've begun to 'take it on the chin' without fully allowing myself to be openly disappointed. This is not good. This is out of character for me. This is typically masculine - and as I near my 30th, I fear the kind of man that I may be becoming. One that doesn't go to the Doctor, doesn't express his fears and vulnerabilities in order to not show weakness. One that doesn't confront his inherent lack of control. 

So here, in one of the most public ways possible, in the interest of transparency, and in the hope of expressing honestly, fully and eloquently the turbulence of a life in the arts I will divulge my fears and display my weaknesses.

Over the last twelve months I have applied for several grants. Three or four to develop a project that has been hanging around for a few years, one for a community arts organisation of which I am the artistic director. I have also applied for two awards.

I have been successful in none of these applications.

Now, I'm not complaining. The funding and the awards were granted to people, groups and projects that are very deserving. I don't desire to be comparative as it helps no one. But, Jesus, it's hard. And I don't know that this was ever communicated to me as a young artist. Actually, it probably was and I possibly ignored it believing (with the arrogance of youth) that it would not apply to my future stellar career. But let me tell you, it does apply. 

Now, I have had my good years. In 2006 I received a number of grants for a number of projects and I was on could nine. It was great. But now, after sitting on a project for three years, it's hard to keep believing in it. It's difficult to continue believing that it will be successful after so many knock-backs, and artistic success and worth is totally beside the point as it is so subjective. 

And this is the thing: these applications, these rejections begin to fertilize comparison, envy and jealousy. As you read who won the grants, the awards - it really is hard to not go: 'Who, [insert name here]? How are they more deserving than me?'. And this is poison. I don't want to have to build myself into a lonely tower of moral righteousness, against the vacuous hordes, just to save face. I don't want to have to believe that my project, my skills or myself are any more deserving than anybody else's. I don't want to have to push myself into artistic martyrdom just because I missed out on a  couple of awards and a bunch of goddamned grants. All this will do is leave me lonely, bitter, angry and irrelevant. 

I don't know what the answer is. I am not able to write an application without a modicum of hope. Whilst studying I never said that I wrote my essay the night before. I didn't. Whilst writing grant applications, I am never able to distance myself from it. In order to summon the energy to write the cursed thing I have to believe in it. I have to buy into it. I cannot write it without imagining myself in the job, imagining the opportunities that would arise from it. I am just that way inclined. 

And I shouldn't have to erect this armour of false self-confidence and nonchalance. It isn't me. 

So here I am. I'm disappointed. I'm a little bit broken. My self belief has taken a battering. I honestly believe that the aforementioned grants / awards went to the right projects / people. I'm just disappointed that the right project / person wasn't me. 

This is not a cry for platitudes to buoy my spirits. I'm okay. I have a great job doing something that I'm privileged to do. I collaborate with great people. I have great friends. 

I am responsible for my self-motivation, self-belief, inspiration. 

I'm just saying it's hard to cop sometimes. 

I have used the words impotent and erect in this post. What a man.