spinning sun dance company

Reviews - Queen Camel
Concert Chamber, Auckland Town Hall
21 – 24 May, 2003

Queen Camel, the latest dance work from choreographer Ann Dewey, begins with the sound of a ship’s horn, signalling arrival at the strange land which Dewey and composer John Gibson have invented for us. The grandeur of the Town Hall Concert Chamber stripped back to its bare walls and wooden floor lends warmth to the setting. A lone figure, dancer Nicholas Watt, appears on the stage draped in voluminous white; his idiosyncratic hand gestures invite us into this foreign world of kinetic language. Descending from the stage into the auditorium he becomes a giant with eight legs, invisibly supported by the four dancers concealed under his skirt.

Dewey’s clever use of the space adds layers to the work so that we get echoes of movements, distance and perspective; journeys being taken, some harder than others.

The six dancers, each given solo’s fill the space in wondrous ways with their movements. Elizabeth Kirk’s precision and clarity is breathtaking. Paora Taurima moves not only his long limbs, but the space surrounding him; his fluidity is mesmerising. Kelly Nash teases with her glances and effortless fall’s; Megan Adams is unfailing energetic in her turns and leaps.

Lynne Keary, whose presence is regal from the start, appears with a house on her head; the lights are on and someone is home. A duet for Adams and Nash, set to Gibson’s exquisite violin solo, is tender and touching, recalling a mother and daughter perhaps. It is a dance done on the spot, with upper bodies and arms moving only, yet it is a highlight.

The music is a tour de force from Gibson. Structured in sections, it runs the gamut from distorted bagpipes and voices to surf music, violin, log drums and snippets of foreign speech that are repeated until only the rhythm is meaningful.
Dewey, who was born in England, has said that Queen Camel is about exploring identity and questioning where one belongs, having herself lived and worked in many countries over the past 20 years.

At the end of this beautiful, multi-layered evening of dance, when Keary in all her splendour dreams of home, she creates for us the land of the long white cloud complete with cottage, quarter-acre section and white picket fence. Lets hope she stays to create more works like this.
- Marianne Schultz, Sunday Star Times, 1 June 2003

An imposing outsized Queen, her white gauzy frock cascading over a split stage, prefaced Ann Dewey’s flight of fancy, Queen Camel - a story of finding self within different landscapes. Five dancers, simply clad, explored the exotic and ordinary, belonging and difference, landscapes of the heart and social interruption. A sixth, representing Dewey’s dislocated self, slowly traced and retraced a solitary path.

Especially composed music by John Gibson worked as a set, providing a rich pageant for the imagination. It constantly changed from bagpipes, guitar rock, to surreal art noise, exotic sounds and language – or whatever. It was extraordinary.

The work was theme and variation, describing Dewey’s personal journey of identity. It ranged from slow moving sections, to fast, zany, curvy dancing – all in her distinctive style. In dreamlike sequences, one or two dancers moved slowly, while other stood transfixed; then gradually flexing feet, rotating shoulders, splaying fingers, they became animated once again.

At times it was emotional, with dancers pulling their faces, as if trying to extract or reshape themselves; or travelling with a mirror, examining the body in passage. At others it was comic, as a dancer became a cutout doll, progressively dressed on stage for domesticity. Towards the end, the structure became repetitive, and coupled with the Chamber’s dour setting; the piece struggled to maintain the upbeat and effervescent momentum. The depth of work was realised in the individual expression and collective power of the dancing.
- Francesca Horsley, NZ Listener

A weather board house, a Giant Queen and five dancers

A huge Queen promenades in front of us and I immediately have associations to an early jazz dance called the Cake Walk, the billowing giant white skirt in stark contrast to the bodice comprising of a small singled vest. Ann’s idiosyncrasies and quirky peculiarities are to the fore in the opening section of this piece. These attributes in my opinion are signatures of Ann’s work. The everyday mundane, the extraordinary, the familiar and the foreign were all present in varying guises in Queen Camel, performed at Auckland Town Hall by Megan Adams, Lynne Keary, Elizabeth Kirk, Kelly Nash, Paora Taurima and Nicholas Watt during the month of May 2003. Combined with very accomplished dancing Queen Camel provided a vehicle to explore the questions around identity and belonging.

The rich gestural sequences of movement were well crafted and it was a joy to watch the articulation of twist, turn and rotate in space from one dancer to another and from one body part to another within the same dancer. Each dancer had solos throughout the piece. Paora’s was particularly beautiful to watch with subtleties and range of dynamics skillfully maximized, bringing an engaging aesthetic to this solo.

An amusing take on domesticity raised itself on several occasions during the piece in the form of pegs, broom, aprons, spoon and the inevitable washing line. Gingham aprons and material dolls transformed in a hilarious very clever sequence to be babies, washing and telephones. The transformation at one point journeyed into the world of the East, veiled and riding camels. The music by John Gibson skilfully matched the dance like a patchwork quilt with all the rich variety of textures, colours, tones and styles from bagpipes to music boxes to rock guitars. The score was compelling.

The many twists and turns and changes in this piece meant that the links, in terms of meaning between the more abstract gestural movement sequences and the somewhat narrative prop orientated sections, were at times obscure and the underlying threads in my opinion got lost. However the sections in themselves were strong, forming individual entities of their own and perhaps like the immigrant we are left with the puzzle of making sense of the several worlds we viewed.

The closing image evolved into the bright green synthetic grass surrounding a weatherboard house with a white picket fence, capturing a sense of place in kiwi land. (In fact I live in just such a house with all the trappings and I suspect Ann does too). Will Ann find more answers to identity in further dances and is this weather board home a new New Zealand citizen’s home for a while longer?

--reviewed by Sue Cheesman, DANZnet

Queen Camel at the Concert Chamber, Auckland Town Hall

When choreographer Ann Dewey became a New Zealand citizen in 2001, she swore allegiance to what sounded to her, at the time, as "the Queen and all her hairs". A minor mispronunciation on a serious occasion.

But compared to the barrage of differences and dislocation that accompany the process of immigration, a hirsute promise is of minor importance. In Queen Camel, Dewey and her company of fine dancers explore the meaning of home and away in a kaleidoscope of kinetic, aural and frequently funny images.

It is a personal journey reflecting Dewey's English roots. Three female dancers are in schoolgirls' grey skirts and white blouses. There are early references to Celtic bagpipes and maypole dancing, brought to life through composer John Gibson's compelling dance score.

But nothing stays in one place for long, and exotic destinations and new customs materialise in rapid succession, illustrating the way we are all defined - and redefined - by place and custom, habit and association: that we make one another what we now are.

Dewey makes fine use of the split-level stage at the Concert Chamber, especially in the opening scene, when the Camel Queen rises to her full stature and distinct undulation amid yards of white veil. But the dancers also use it to full advantage to show their strength and bounce and even their ability to walk horizontally.

There are six fine dancers - Megan Adams, Lynne Keary, Elizabeth Kirk, Kelly Nash, Paora Taurima and Nicholas Watt - each with a highly individualistic style but melding into a balanced and compelling ensemble.

It is a continuing tragedy that groups that find such synergy and intelligent creativity are still forced to disband after a few weeks, the next project starting from scratch to reinvent the contemporary dance company wheel.

- reviewed by Bernadette Rae, NZ Herald

Auckland does not see enough of Ann Dewey’s remarkable and distinctive choreography. Respected as choreographer, teacher and producer, Dewey brought her Englishness to the fore in Queen Camel, premiering in mid May. This was her first work since Nine Daisies, which toured New Zealand and England in 2000. Like Ieremia, Dewey’s work was a personal journey exploring identity in the shifting panorama of her life. Her work has an off-the-edge quality, a sense of bizarre and the unexpected. Dewey’s original dance movement , with its quirky body shapes and virtuosic dramatic moments, strikes a different chord compared to the grounded, earthy and South Pacific quality that has become a New Zealand style.

- Raewyn Whyte in DANZ Quarterly – April 2003