spinning sun dance companyReviews - Shine LadyLeigh Hall, 18-21 May 2011
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Reviewed by Julia McKerrow, 12 Oct 2011 at Middleton Grange School Performing Arts Centre, Christchurch I am pleased to see Shine Lady programmed in The Body Festival this year and am eager to see this new work from Spinning Sun after being delighted by Flicker at The Body Festival two years ago. The positive comments and buzz from the Auckland season of Shine Lady has me intrigued. It is always a treat to have an established and accomplished dance artist such as Ann Dewey present her work in Christchurch. So I am a bit disappointed to sit amongst such a small audience of nonetheless supportive and interested festival goers on the opening night of Shine Lady. Reviewed by Marianne Schultz on 2 October 2011 at Q Theatre, Auckland On arrival to the main auditorium, Rangatira, at Q Theatre, the pre-show setting of Spinning Sun’s Shine Lady places us in a worshipful space. The towering structures upstage recall the strange and bewildering Gaudi cathedral of Barcelona, with their elevating spindles, dense architectural construction and opaque symbolism. Likewise, choreographer Ann Dewey’s movement language confronts the audience with beautiful and perplexing images and meanings. Above all however, Shine Lady is a tour de force of original, engaging and beguiling contemporary dance. Yew’s vigorous solo to a Bach cello suite juxtaposes the serenity of the music with explosive choreography. As one leg whips round to the front and ricochet’s back a spark of a jump propels her off the ground. Another of Kirk’s slow moving gestural solos is mesmerizing. Against the steady rhythm of a PJ Harvey song she moves downstage in liquid-like movements, with a hypnotic and absorbing gaze. A trio in canon, though a simple device, proves to be a satisfying interlude to the slower, gestural sections due to its precision and playfulness. Dewey is indeed blessed to have three performers of this calibre able to contribute to and interpret her singular vision. If a choreographer is a writer of movement then Dewey is the epitome of this occupation. Her ability to create a language of movement, evident in all of her previous works, has been honed to near perfection in Shine Lady. Without spoken words, multi-media, projected images or elaborate costumes, she offered a complete and satisfying experience of dance and for sixty minutes transported us out of our day-to- day existence into a world where movement communicates. Within the hallowed walls of the theatre Shine Lady bestowed on us the gift of dance.
Reviewed by Bernadette Rae, NZ Herald on 23 May 2011 Choreographer Ann Dewey and her three gorgeous dancers began this work as an exploration of the movement of plate tectonics and microscopic life, and whether purely abstract movement was possible. The result is a bejewelled celebration of the primordial feminine cosmic energy: of goddess power in all its manifestations, from Pavarti to the Madonna. Indian philosophy would call this energy shakti, or the prakriti of purusha. In embodying the pushing and sliding, twisting, shoving and gliding motion of the planet's exoskeleton and the staccato motion of organic life viewed through a microscope, Dewey discovers a unifying force that gives the work's vocabulary a riveting cohesion and meaning beyond but encompassing the religious iconography. Several gleaming and satiny cloths in jewel colours suggest continents on the move in one moment, sacred mantles in another. Costumes are simple: white T-shirts and knickerbockers in contemporary style - that nevertheless give a subtle hint of the harem, and are frequently embellished by those swirling silks in turquoise, blue and red. The set piece, by artist Mike Petre, is a dense cluster of shaped sticks, reminiscent of, and probably existing in a former life as, turned chair legs. But grouped closely and arranged on cabinets of varying heights they magically montage from cityscape to minarets to forest. The cabinets add magic to the jewel-like aura of the performance when they illuminate, towards the end of the work, manifesting a starscape, the symbol for eternity, a halo and letters from Sanskrit and Greek. The music is a mad melange from beautiful Bach cello suites through European gypsy music to thrashy modern punk. Elizabeth Kirk, Julie van Renen and Liana Yew are the transcendent dancers, faultlessly powerful and yielding, lyrical and angular, quirky, cute, quicksilver, compelling - and immeasurably serene. There is a rather strange change of pace in the closing scene, though, with the descent from above of three plastic dolls, recognisable consorts of goddess Barbie, and variously spun and hung and finally liberated to take their place on Petre's artistic arrangement, alongside some small plastic cows. A nod to the importance of husbandry in the dance of all creation? |
A fluid feminine performance
Reviewed by Roxanne de Bruyn in Theatreview, 27 May 2011
http://www.theatreview.org.nz/reviews/review.php?id=3999
A Maze of Feminine Intricacy
Reviewed by Francesa Horsley – NZ Listener, 11 June 2011
The iconic image of the Madonna, adorned in a soft red mantle, was a guest among other celebrated women in Ann Dewey’s Shine Lady.
Supported by handmaidens draped in “Renaissance blue” swaths of silk, she radiated serenity. The Virgin Mary was not the only deity to appear – a female Egyptian mummy was wrapped in cloth and carried aloft. An Indian goddess materialized, enchanting all with her dance, arms and palms upturned, legs and feet stamping and flicking. Helen of Troy (or another such adventurous woman), having placed her forearm to brow, was swept in blue satin towards a distant horizon/romance.
Alongside these iconic figures, Dewey constructed a maze of feminine intricacy; a lace of dance and nature, gesture and representation. The work was largely abstract, coupled with a science-like attention to order and inner detail. Cleverly, Dewey embedded an interpretation of Leigh – her North Auckland seaside village – and its environment, flora and fauna. Dancers’ hands became beaks pecking into space, cupped fingers stabbed into the ground pukeko – like, motifs from sea and shore birds subtly appeared. Wrists twisted into Indian Kathak dance signatures, hands splayed into sundials and halos.
The three dancers, Elizabeth Kirk, Julie van Renen and Liana Yew, mastered the unhurried yet constantly changing choreography with impressive assurance and personality. Kirk and van Renen were initially reflective dreamers – softly turning each other, morphing into a singular organic unity, contemplatively poised on chairs. With Dewey’s sense of the absurd bubbling to the surface, the subtly lampooned their own seriousness, playing ironic, subversive jokes. Yew was the counterpart, expressing an inner turmoil and intensity that fuelled the work’s feminist view.
Dewey’s work is idiosyncratic and unique, its inner coherence and artistry and joy to watch. Yet here her ideas were sometimes oblique. Ken dolls swung on cords to be cut down; a miniature set of cows and farmhand were arranged on a cabinet.
The dancers’ costumes, neutral tops and harem –style crop pants were augmented by the use of silky material. The fanciful set designed by Mike Petre featured small wood-turned “minarets” placed on cabinets that conjured up a mini-skyline from Arabia Nights. The cabinets later lit up with letters from Sanskrit and Greek. The choreography was aligned to the musical rhythms- the soundtrack ranging from serious Bach cello, orchestra and piano suites to lively world fusion gypsy-style upbeats.
This Not A Review: Shine Lady by Ann Dewey and Spinning Sun
Reviewed by Carrie Rae 26/5/2011 in Dancestuff
http://www.dancestuff.co.nz/shine-lady-by-ann-dewey-and-spinning-sun
Living and working out in the bush at Leigh must be pretty awesome. Ann Dewey and her dancing ladies have created quite the lush dancescape by taking bits and pieces from mother, nature and Mother Nature and putting it all together with a simple but clever set design and use of prop/costumes.
To get the full effect I’ll definitely have to see this again. (Luckily Spinning Sun is performing Shine Lady later this year at Tempo on the main stage at Q Theatre.) Shine Lady is a dance in 16 parts, with movement phrases and sections based on a grand mixture of ideas. Plate tectonics and microscopic life. Local flora and fauna. Female religious icons and goddesses. It’s all life (natural, spiritual and otherwise) and energy (ditto) summed up and celebrated through recognisable and obscure imagery.
Hands and fingers are stretched and splayed into what could be snail antennae, mangrove roots or sacred Indian diety jazz hands. These are also used to portray the halo of the Virgin Mary, eminating holy light and purity. Ann and her dancers have truly done their homework, and it’s evident they have spent a great deal of time exploring these gestures.
And I just have to say what AMAZING dancers Elizabeth Kirk, Liana Yew and Julie van Renen are. Whether they are moving together, creating a compelling tableau or executing a spot-on unison section, or taking control of the space alone, their performance seems effortless and devoted. Much of the movement vocabulary is made up of very precise, considered steps and gestures that swoop, surge and ping in all the right places. The dancers’ talent and artistry really shine throughout the work.
It is impossible to miss the feminine vibe going off here. Besides the obvious all-female cast, the aire of estrogen is exuded through many outward appearances. The mother, the goddess. The scary she-beast, dangerous and compelling. The exotic thing of beauty, coiled and waiting. The half-crazy prophetess. I remember reading somewhere once that the ancient Greeks believed that women’s heads were full of snakes. Could it be that these ladies heard that same rumour?
The set design by Mike Petre looms in the background like a distant city towering over the vast landscape of stage. It is constructed from a collection of mix-and-match turned table legs (I’m guessing) on top of, under and in between these beautiful light boxes, each bearing a symbol that appears when the boxes are illuminated. A halo, infinity and several others that hint at religious connotations. Flowing, colourful fabrics are used to create images of of holiness, death, modesty, magic and spiritual prowess. Moving without walking. Spectacular.
The music is a real mash-up of old and new, local and exotic, traditional and innovative. Bach’s lilting cello suites are intermingled with the banshee wails and reverb-heavy guitar riffs of young Auckland outfit Bandicoot. I find this lends to the timeless and universal feel of the work; that it doesn’t necessarily take place in any one given time or place.
And in saying that, Ann and her dancers have created something that traverses the realm of the real and the fantastical, gathering up bits from each world and molding them into a physical representation of the natural and spiritual. A playful (yet utterly sincere) take on the psyche and mysticism of life in all its forms. Snails, virgins, demons and all.
Shine on you crazy lady. And I mean crazy in a good way.