spinning sun dance company

Reviews - Flicker

Baycourt Theatre, Tauranga - 30 October 2009
Suter Theatre, Nelson - 21/22 October 2009
Hawkins Theatre, Papakura - 16 October 2009
New Caledonia, 26 May 2009
TAPAC, 8-10 October 2008
Southern Ballet Theatre, Christchurch, 2-4 October 2008
TAPAC, Auckland 6-9 March 2008
Leigh Hall, Leigh, February 2008

Venue: Backstage, Baycourt Theatre, Friday 30 October 2009, 7pm.
When I hear the word flicker, I think of a fleeting memory, my own quickening pulse, the dance of candle-light upon the shadows of fading night, the blurred wings of a hummingbird: the moment that is youth. In Flicker choreographer Ann Dewey creates moments in time to conjure the quiet, but significant, moments of our universal experience: the journey from innocence to adult, and the indelible flickering moments, which path the journey along the way: the dancers move slowly, with graceful strength and precision, unfurling like the flowers in a time-lapse film; they huddle through dark terrains, which are suddenly illuminated by fireflies flitting; they laugh as they flick tea-towels at each other, and, all the while, we watch as they grow into confident, strong individuals. The set’s atmospheric lighting is as delicate as a mid-summer night’s candle-parade, and is achieved with a  combination of set-lighting and torch-lighting: tiny battery lights are strategically strapped upon the dancers, creating blazing visual-trails like sparklers at each move; torches are employed as portable spotlights, illuminating the performance, yet also providing atmospheric shadows that deepen the contrast. Delicate and considered, Flicker recalls powerful/treasured memories of our past.
- Review by Nyree Sherlock

Dear Ann
Thanks again so much for a fine performance of Flicker.   I loved it.
I'm attaching the review which will be in today's BOP Times.
Keep in touch.
cheers
Philip

Whimsy, humour and effervescence were the abiding themes in ‘Flicker’, the latest work by north Auckland, Leigh-based choreographer Ann Dewey.  These elements are hallmarks of her works, which include light spirited and lyrical dancing – you can’t help but feel good after watching her performances.

Three women, Julie van Renen, Zoe Watkins and Sophie Ryan, clad in ballooning white bloomers, had mini torches strapped on their heads and limbs. These lights gradually lit up their bodies creating a sense of magic, like evening stars coming out in the dusk or fairy lights on a Christmas tree. The dancers turned slowly over each other while another dancer, Liz Kirk, in a white dress, sat immobile with a lamp positioned on her head.

The backdrop was a giant parchment map of New Zealand, complete with an upside down South Island. This seemed apt as much of the choreography poked fun at the serious; it was floating, disengaged from harsh reality – almost like fragments of a home movie of childhood – but through a very lyrical lens.

In the following sequences, the four dancers moved together as one, carried or mirrored each other, rolled, tumbled, rocked. They slipped in and out of the light, sometimes half hidden, other times confronting the audience, stretching their mouths and pulling faces, or speeding around in energetic carefree fury, swinging their limbs. Always the partnering was fluid, assured – body knowing body. Humour was never far away, with teasing movements, slightly mocking.

Sustained throughout the work was the link to childhood; innocent frolicking, the delight of playing pranks provoking a kinaesthetic memory of a carefree tumbling world. These were disrupted by darker, more elusive, unsettling moments as dancers cast in semi-darkness were distorted by convoluted movement that suspended time and place, suggesting unwelcome disturbances drawn from memory.

Music by John Gibson, together with David Kilgour, created the nuances and connections for the work, idiosyncratic yet embedded into the essential fabric of the dance. It was both complementary and juxtaposed, aligned to the distinctive episodic sequences.

There were numerous layers to the work aside from youthful remembrance. Imaginings, ethereal dreamscapes, hinted locations, hidden truths glimpsed in the dancers’ bodies - quintessential Dewey.

Francesca Horsley, DANZ Quarterly

Going to a dance show choreographed by Ann Dewey with her now distinctive, and I imagine fairly collaborative, artistic ensemble is a bit like going to dinner with a group of old friends. Doesn't happen enough but when it does it really is memorable and very, very satisfying.

Dewey is a pure artist; her work describes the rich complex mix of stories of a lived-in life: imagination at full play. Flicker is peopled by four excellent dancers but actually they become more like threads and seams; insects, landscapes, constellations, light, play versions of a more dreamlike tapestry.

The sound score is awesome. John Gibson, master of choreographic music in this country, together with David Kilgour, weaves a reverberate sound into the light and also people through distinctive instrumental and rhythmic voices, key to a danced connection of family, memory and friends. He leads us often through an enchanted, ancient tunnel. I kept feeling like I was under a Central Otago sky as a child, alone and never lonely. The rush of vastness I felt there was present in this spacious, thoughtful choreography.

The dancers have been hand picked. Gracious elegance and occasional tremulous passion is controlled and exhibited by Liz Kirk. There was never enough of her - she was like the integral silk thread but she kept disappearing and I would watch her seated on the side of stage just to soak her presence.

The other dancers are younger and their virtuosic counter play is sometimes like a question mark. Julie van Renen takes on choreography and rips it into her body. She and the other two dancers, Zoe Watkins and Sophie Ryan are so attuned to the movement that their bodies leave trails, enhanced but not overpowered by an inventive uses of light.

Flicker is an exquisite treasure and must be seen.

--Felicity Molloy, Theatreview

Flicker is a choreographic body of work by Anne Dewey and friends, that explores the idea of four dancers controlling much of the stage theatricality through the use of hand held lights. Dewey's aim is to manipulate precise images in a shifting landscape of idiosyncratic abstract movement to/ around/ with a textured and 'raw' score by composer/ collaborators John Gibson and David Kilgour.

Performed at TAPAC Theatre after a successful recent Christchurch season, the set design consists of a huge hanging white curtain made up of several pleats, offset by an upside down hanging map of the South Island and a North Island map/ screen set up on the opposite side of stage.

The dancers - Liz Kirk, Zoe Watkins, Julie Van Renen and Sophie Ryan - make their entrance with a mysterious light show; shadows, silhouettes of bodies, females, youthful, ponytails, baring long legs through basic cream pantaloons and singlet tops. Twisting, fast limbs, hops, all accentuated by mini lights attached to different parts of their bodies: hip, collar, waist, knee and foot ...

A jazzy introduction, we see this light play and get the feel of the first 'flicker' as their leaps, unders, overs and shifts in-between, give us changing perspectives and a sense of their range of motion across the space like constellations in a night sky.

A duet: dancer carefully balanced on another's back in an intimate light begins a build towards painting a more fleshed out view of the body. Precision of weight transference, unfussy partnering, release, surrender and an unfolding to a guitar track give us a taste of Dewey's careful and detailed movement approach and philosophy.

Throughout, little glimpses of light create transitions that draw our eye towards various aspects of the space. A torchlight on the NZ map, a big bright reflection off the papery backdrop, or dancers standing on different levels pointing torches towards the others illuminating them in a myriad of ways. More dance sequences abound, bodies moving like moths, circling, nudging, long arches and quick bounces to show her deep fascination with choreography.

The dancers possess a mercurial quality, like children intrigued by blowing bubbles, as they sustain an engagement throughout an eclectic range of movements and styles.  A dancer smiles before the trio, faces moulded of elastane, flowing hair, seamless shifts of energy and dynamic inhabiting states from light to dark.

Solo dances extend upon their repertoire; developed with facial expressions, elbow isolations, flicks, swipes performed to a ukulele sound. Back to a trio with movement that flows from the back, extensions contrasted with undulations, gestures juxtaposed with linearity, unpredictable yet beautifully phrased.

As the work digs deeper and deeper into the psyche, we uncover the performers' states of consciousness, riding and going through the music yet maintaining their individual line of focus. Little subtle touches and hints for each other, a foot placed succinctly near a heel sets another dancer off. This timing and connection was obviously fine-tuned during the works year-long gestation period in Leigh.

Other sections offer other expressions of humour, quirkiness and character, mesmerising faces lit by a small light while a red blinking light bleeds across the backdrop. Other figures also emerge, such as nymphs, fairies, Siamese twins and the crone.

The work wraps up with a series of faux endings, an exposition of movement themes already explored. Finishing with my favourite image of the dancers silhouetted by a light partly submerged under someone's skirt, before a dancer reaches towards a line of light that gradually becomes so small it disappears.

The dancers deserved their two curtain calls for their commitment. Blending joy, spontaneity with a specific performative focus, which Dewey said was deliberately anti "po-face", the work is made up of ideas that interest her and reflect a personal priority all mature artists should have.

"Flicker" is a fine work, with shades of refinement present that distinguish Anne Dewey as an important singular choreographic voice in both the festival and nationally. Satisfying!

--Jack Gray, Theatreview

"... another gem .. Flicker, by Ann Dewey's company Spinning Sun. Here is a choreographer who takes time to polish her works and they subsequently shine like the jewels they are, and leave us yearning for more."
- Bernadette Rae, NZ Herald

Les Nouvelles Caledoniennes
May 26 2009
Kamere. La troupe Spinning Sun propose spectacles et ateliers
Des danseurs Kiwis sous le Chapito

La troupe de danse contemporaine neo-zelandaise Spinning Sun sera en spectacle a noumea, a partir de samedi, dans le cadre de la fete de Ducos. Un stage pour les 7 – 15 ans se deroule toute la semaine sous de Chatipo.

La choregraphe neo-zelandaise. Anne Dewey et sa troupe spinning sun, composee de quatre danseurs, sont arrives a noumea pour une semaine d’ateliers et pour presenter leur spectacle flicker, sous le chapito a kamere. Les representations auront lieu a l’issue du stage, le Samedi 30 mai. Flicker est un spectacle novateur alliant mystere, humour et beaute, et deja acclame par la critique a Auckland et Christchurch.

“Des echanges reguliers sont deja envisages”

“Nous somes tres heureux de ce premier deplacement en Caledonie qui devrait etre le point de depart d’echanges culturels chorehraphiques entre nos deux pays”, confie Anne Dewey qui ajoute etre tres heureuse de decouvrir la nouvelle-caldonie. Les ateliers proposes par les neo-zelandais  sont ouverts aux jeunes danseurs caledoniens n’ayant pas de pratique de la danse contemporaine, mais desirant decouvir cette technique. Ils s’adressent egalement aux danseurs professionnels et aux professeurs de danse. La troupe neo-zelandaise a ete invitee par Daniel Taboga, respon sable du centre de development choregraphique. “il s’agit d’une merveilleuse opportunite pour tisser des liens avec les danseurs caledoniens dans le cadre de futur s echanges. Nous pourrions sans doute envisager d’organiser des ateliers reguliers dans nos deux pays. Et une troupe de danse caledonienne pourrait etre invitee a participer au festival de danse tempo qui se deroulera a Auckland, fin septembre “, estime Anne Dewey. A leur retour en nouvelle-zelande. Anne Dewey et spinning sun presenteront leur nouveau spectacle baptise left and right au public neo zelandais.

--Commentary by JG