here's what I said for artshub
http://au.artshub.com/au/news-article/reviews/performing-arts/symphony-193494
This amazing, mesmerizing dance work will leave you stunned, breathless and gasping for more. Part of the ‘About an Hour’ series for the Sydney Festival, and first performed in 2012 at Northern Rivers Performing Arts (NORPA) in Lismore NSW, it is an intoxicating collaboration between four magnificent, death-defying performers from Legs on The Wall and Stefan Gregory on amplified electric guitar.
Gregory was specially commissioned to write the music; a reworking of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony (hence the title) for solo guitar. Beethoven’s original composition is used as a base by Gregory, with the movements indicated by the appropriate number somewhere on the scenery. The melodies and rhythms are incorporated, but Gregory’s soundtrack varies from crashing ‘musique concrete’ to jaunty dance melodies, creating something very different to the late 18th century original. Throughout the performance Gregory stands front stage left, before a spot-lit music stand, with generally no interaction with the dancers.
In the beginning the stage is clear, though there are cardboard boxes stacked in the wings. Much use is made of these throughout as a flexible set. Rhiannon Spratling has a breathtaking opening solo where the other three dancers shift the boxes all over the stage, extremely restricting the stage space. A wonderful game of hide and seek is then played. In another section the cast build a wall of the boxes (with gaps). To reach the ramparts there are shoulder–high lifts, the cast helping each other. There is a fabulous coup-de-theatre where the boxes collapse and become a magical starry tableaux. Are we meant to think of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's wonderful Sutra?
Choreographically, the show opens with Spratling’s incredibly controlled, razor-sharp arabesque penchee. She then has an extraordinary angular solo. In a latter section she dips and rolls as if caught in the ‘rocks’ of the various boxes. Tiny details (the hands on top of a box for instance) are also important. There are also intimate emotional reactions and tension between the various performers throughout. At times the choreography is fluid and darting. In other sections there is unison, repetition of certain angular phrases of movement. Yet other parts seem Christopher Wheeldon inspired. There are some incredibly dangerous, challenging lifts and catches, fast rolls and quite a bit of floorwork.
About three quarters of the way through Amy Macpherson has an incredible, mesmerising extended solo that is quite gymnastic/contortionist in appearance. It is very demanding – seemingly almost physically impossible – yet very reflective, like a melancholy monologue, and she looks boneless. It is interrupted by an explosive pas de deux but she continues.
Both of the men also have featured solos showcasing their extraordinary talents.
Speech is included: each of the four dancers has a short monologue on the phone (e.g. Cornell’s being left six metres high up on a forklift!)
The final section of the work is where all the dancers become exciting aerialists, using straps. They all throw themselves in to this sequence, swirling, hovering, turning, bouncing upside down, in a spellbinding finale complemented by the stunning red and black landscape projections at the rear of the stage.
While relatively short (just on an hour) this is a brilliant, stunning start to the theatrical year.
Rating: 4 ½ stars out of 5
Symphony
By Legs on the Wall
Director: Patrick Nolan
Composer/Performer: Stefan Gregory
Video: Andrew Wholley
Designer: Alice Babidge
Lighting: Matt Cox
Head Rigger: Jon Blake
Assistant Director: Dean Cross
Performers: Matt Cornell, Amy Macpherson, Rhiannon Spratling and Joshua Thomson
Carriageworks, Eveleigh
11 – 16 January
Sydney Festival 2013
www.sydneyfestival.org.au
5 – 27 January
Gregory was specially commissioned to write the music; a reworking of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony (hence the title) for solo guitar. Beethoven’s original composition is used as a base by Gregory, with the movements indicated by the appropriate number somewhere on the scenery. The melodies and rhythms are incorporated, but Gregory’s soundtrack varies from crashing ‘musique concrete’ to jaunty dance melodies, creating something very different to the late 18th century original. Throughout the performance Gregory stands front stage left, before a spot-lit music stand, with generally no interaction with the dancers.
In the beginning the stage is clear, though there are cardboard boxes stacked in the wings. Much use is made of these throughout as a flexible set. Rhiannon Spratling has a breathtaking opening solo where the other three dancers shift the boxes all over the stage, extremely restricting the stage space. A wonderful game of hide and seek is then played. In another section the cast build a wall of the boxes (with gaps). To reach the ramparts there are shoulder–high lifts, the cast helping each other. There is a fabulous coup-de-theatre where the boxes collapse and become a magical starry tableaux. Are we meant to think of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's wonderful Sutra?
Choreographically, the show opens with Spratling’s incredibly controlled, razor-sharp arabesque penchee. She then has an extraordinary angular solo. In a latter section she dips and rolls as if caught in the ‘rocks’ of the various boxes. Tiny details (the hands on top of a box for instance) are also important. There are also intimate emotional reactions and tension between the various performers throughout. At times the choreography is fluid and darting. In other sections there is unison, repetition of certain angular phrases of movement. Yet other parts seem Christopher Wheeldon inspired. There are some incredibly dangerous, challenging lifts and catches, fast rolls and quite a bit of floorwork.
About three quarters of the way through Amy Macpherson has an incredible, mesmerising extended solo that is quite gymnastic/contortionist in appearance. It is very demanding – seemingly almost physically impossible – yet very reflective, like a melancholy monologue, and she looks boneless. It is interrupted by an explosive pas de deux but she continues.
Both of the men also have featured solos showcasing their extraordinary talents.
Speech is included: each of the four dancers has a short monologue on the phone (e.g. Cornell’s being left six metres high up on a forklift!)
The final section of the work is where all the dancers become exciting aerialists, using straps. They all throw themselves in to this sequence, swirling, hovering, turning, bouncing upside down, in a spellbinding finale complemented by the stunning red and black landscape projections at the rear of the stage.
While relatively short (just on an hour) this is a brilliant, stunning start to the theatrical year.
Rating: 4 ½ stars out of 5
Symphony
By Legs on the Wall
Director: Patrick Nolan
Composer/Performer: Stefan Gregory
Video: Andrew Wholley
Designer: Alice Babidge
Lighting: Matt Cox
Head Rigger: Jon Blake
Assistant Director: Dean Cross
Performers: Matt Cornell, Amy Macpherson, Rhiannon Spratling and Joshua Thomson
Carriageworks, Eveleigh
11 – 16 January
Sydney Festival 2013
www.sydneyfestival.org.au
5 – 27 January
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