As the audience meanders in, there are dancers on stage, working laconically and repetitively, and the audience is opened up to the feeling of a mood for resistance.
The story is that the No Fun Police have banned dancing but the people are fed up and ready for rebellion – they want to reclaim the right to dance.
The dances are choreographed by the collective, with a standout piece choreographed and performed by William Luskie and Sarah Chatfield to the stirring beats of the Royal Scots Dragoon and Matias Aguayo.
Luskie and Chatfield work well together, and this piece is full of pathos and humour as the workers find themselves and begin to experiment with movement and colour.
The storyline flows easily, with the No Fun Police, in black relieved only by gold sequined ties (you can’t tell me there’s no fun in their souls!), marching onstage to berate the workers and corral them back into uniformity, each time with less success and more resistance. It seems that the army grows as the workers’ become more determined to have their way.
The mix of choreographed and improvised dance is seamless and the dancers all have space to exhibit their style and personality, particularly in the maelstrom of colour that is the group improvisation to Kenny Loggins’ Footloose.
The audience is well pleased, with applause between each piece and sustained applause at the end and many joining the dancers to dance uninhibitedly afterwards.
Gasp! Dance Inclusive has grown enormously since I saw their last work and it’s a testament to Hahna Briggs to see such a large group of people, many of whom may never have danced before (let alone in front of an audience), perform with such enthusiasm and skill.
The New Athenaeum Theatre has been opened up and refreshed (for a while now but this was my first time in I’m ashamed to say), with the stage removed leaving a bigger more open space for performance.
There are pros and cons to this – space is always good but it’s difficult to see any floor work once you’re more than a couple of rows back. The person coming in and out of the door at the back of the house was also distracting.
Dance Revolution Dance
New Athenaeum Theatre, 24 The Octagon, Dunedin
From 11 Mar 2018 to 12 Mar 2018
[1 hour]
Reviewed by Hannah Molloy, originally published by Theatreview
