The performance at the Heritage Playhouse last weekend presented by the annual Sunshine Coast Dance Society's dancer in residence, Gail Lotenberg, was unusual to say the least. It was less about dance and more about movement concepts across the space available to the performers. Dancers in all three pieces changed their space by dancing diagonal paths or moving boundaries to create sections and compartments on stage.
In an after-performance chat, Lotenberg, who is the artistic director of LINK Dance Foundation, expanded on this theme, saying that, "Choreographers don't compose movement, they compose space."
Her affinity with scientists brought about an interesting intersection between art and science in the piece Testing Perception. This feature piece performed by Lotenberg with dancers Darcy McMurray and Kirsten Wiren mimicked an experiment in which blindfolded dancers trusted their senses to determine when another dancer approached. The performers moved along a diagonal blue line that limited their movements and provided a structure for their experiment. As happens in artists, the rational nature of the experiment broke down every so often, and those who could not trust their senses became more confused, creating an empathy with anyone in the audience who felt similarly lost in their own minds.
In reality, this is what dancers do, as the group explained later--move in an ensemble, always aware of others around them.
Coast dancer Sylvain Brochu asked Lotenberg to choreograph for him using the element of earth. The piece, called Time and Space, used rocks as stage props that formed a diagonal line, and it was up to the dancer to sing, speak and move the boundaries to shapehow he used his time.
"The meaning came later," said Brochu, and several in the audience were reminded of his last year's choreographed piece that involved moving through trees in a forest represented by blocks of wood.
Advanced workshop students Shelly Elston and Brittany Robertson, along with Lotenberg, broke the tension in the middle of the show with a feel good romp entitled In the Groove that encompassed the entire stage.
Now that dance has surged into popularity on prime time TV programming, it's interesting to see how Lotenberg's show diverged from the drama of TV performances with their power lifts, dazzling footwork and costumes. This performance had none of the above but pushed into new creative areas-in effect, it did exactly what the Dance Society's residency is supposed to do: give a chance for choreographers and performance artists to work on the Coast for a week to develop their art.
Read more at www.sunshinecoastdance.com.
