spinning sun dance company

Reviews - One Thousand Bluebirds
a new dance by Ann Dewey and friends

Maidment Theatre Studio
31 April - 3 May 1998

Reviewed by Bernadette Rae
NZ Herald, 29 April 1998

Contemporary choreographer Ann Dewey’s new work is set to more than an hour of unrelenting Chopin – Preludes, Wiosna and Feuille d’Album – served in one marathon sound bite with no sets, no narrative, no gimmicks and only workman like lights.

Hardly popular fare.

But after a shaky beginning, threatening a surfeit of Douglas Wright derivatives, Dewey’s flock takes flight, gaining and maintaining altitude throughout from a steady upsurge of subtle humour.

She describes One Thousand Bluebirds as “moments joined on stage as snapshots in a photograph album” and the work has all the charm, and understated drama, of a Sunday afternoon spent amongst familiar volumes of old snapshots, heavy on nostalgia and reflection but leavened into laughter by those comic moment accidentially caught forever by an old Box Brownie.

Each of Dewey’s five young dancers Megan Adams, Caroline Bindon, Nicole Bishop, Sean Macdonald and Anna MacRae can take a bow for their part in bringing the process to life.

But tousle-topped Megan Adams, a 1995 graduate of the New Zealand School of Dance with a reputation for co-ordinating offbeat and late night dance events of her own, unhesitatingly steals the show.

She has a strong stage presence with those kill-for quadriceps and the blonde and bouncy Shirley Temple curls.
But Adams is also a master of mudra, giving a movement the most piercing of meanings with the flick of a finger, the tilt of her jaw, a severely understated twiddle of a little toe that could not be more noticed if it were preceded by a full roll, or the tilt of a shoulder, so cleverly counterpointed with the line of a hip.

She presents, fot the most part, a deadpan face, which none-the-less speaks volumes.

Dewey speaks volumes too, cleverly, quietly and with much subtle beauty. But Adams is the Bluebird in a thousand.

Reviewed by Anita Treefoot
Craccum, April 1998

One Thousand Bluebirds, performed in the Maidment Theatre, is a dance focused on movement. The set consists of a black, wooden backdrop, the costumes are plain, and the only props are several pieces of rope. There is no narrative, but it is structured by a collection of ‘everyday life snapshots’ woven together through dance.

Apart from several brief moments of silence, Chopin was played. This influenced the performance’s rhythm, allowing the five dancers to alternate between collective explosions of energy, synchronised, distinctly choreographed movements, and languid, intensely physical interactions.

It is the composition and form of the human body, which is essential to this piece – there is a fascination with the infinite shapes tumbling from people co-existing in the same space. The dancers were carried and supported by each other throughout: lifting, rolling, sifting from one persons back or arms to another’s.

Despite the minimalist nature of the presentation, or indeed, because of it, there was a great variety in tempo and style. From one scene in which an incredible beat was maintained using only feet and ropes, to a ‘falling in love’ scene where all the negotiation, frustration and infatuation of a relationship was portrayed lucidly, this diversity is communicated. Like all successful dances, it creates an awareness of ones own body, and a desire for creative physical expression.