Friday April 15, 2011 - Kokyat left for Malaysia and Sri Lanka today so I went alone this evening to see the performance by Matthew Westerby Company down at University Settement. Kokyat and I met Matthew and his dancers last month at a rehearsal. Image at the top: dancer Amanda Gavan photographed by her fellow-dancer Bafana Matea.
The performance was a sell-out with a waiting list of hopefuls; there were people seated on cushions on the floor right at the edge of the performing space and extra chairs on the sidelines. The dancers may have been slightly constrained by the dimensions of the stage and lack of wing-space. But they danced up a storm, and Matthew's choreography and his use of varied musical styles kept the audience firmly engaged in the proceedings.
Works to the music of Karl Jenkins opened and closed the evening; this composer has a gift not only for rhythmic inventiveness and intriguing orchestrations but also a feeling of old meets new. This suits Matthew's choreographic ideas perfectly and in the opening A WATERSHED MOMENT the ensemble of dancers took to the combination of music and movement with flair. Impressive moments included a double pas de deux with each couple doing slightly different things at the same time, a solo danced with quiet intensity by the blonde Alessandra Larson, and a trio of pairs. The audience responded enthusiastically and the evening was off to a fine start.
In a brilliant shift of mood, Matthew then appeared in danseur mode for a duet with Ms. Larson entitled SLOW FALL. Set to a music by Radical Fashion, this highly personal work evokes the collapse of a relationship but does so with eerie calm, devoid of angst or melodrama. The couple know each other all too well and though passions and bitterness seethe below the surface the dance is slow, with a measured emotional quality that underscores the hopelessness of the situation. Alessandra (who seems to have stepped out of a Bergman film) and Matthew danced with expressive clarity. I loved this piece.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is the underlying theme of STRICKEN; OCB is an anxiety disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts that produce uneasiness, fear or worry. In the opening moments of this work - set to music of Coppe and Basement Jaxx - the dancers fuss with fastidious obsession over concerns that their skin and clothing are infected with some imagined substance. The music encapsulates their apprehension. The later movements of this work seemed a bit lacking in focus but this may have been caused by the distracting talking and crying of a small child in the audience; the parent was too slow to take the kid out and so some affecting moments danced in silence were lost. People are so inconsiderate.
But after the intermission things got back on track with the sexy, seductive HELL HATH NO FURY. To songs by Pink Martini with a delicious swirl of Chopin in the mix, Amanda Gavan and Hannah Marie Corbin swirl their skirts with a flamenco flair as their alternately tease and subjugate their suitors (Bafana Matea and Dylan Baker). The dancers looked super here and played up the sexual tension beneath the extroverted patterns of movement.
The entire Company appeared in the concluding COURT; set to a thoroughly enjoyable score by Karl Jenkins this ensemble work is flavoured with references to Tudor England both in the costuming (royal purple corsets for the girls, knee-britches for the boys, ruff collars for all) and in the stately feeling of court dances - dances done with a contemporary lilt and touches of wit. Above: Mandy Chan and Dylan Baker, photographed by Matthew Westerby.
COURT (Hannah Marie Corbin, above) goes onto my list of let's-see-this-again works, along with SLOW FALL. But really there was a high level of music, choreography and dancing in throughout the entire programme. An added plus was the fine lighting by Mike Riggs.
Dylan Baker of Matthew Westerby Company. I'll look forward to keeping tabs on Matthew's work and seeing where he and his dancers go from here.
COURT photos by Matthew Westerby.