Mortal Engine

The stage welcomes spectators with a group of panels slightly inclined over the floor. The first image is a body laid back on a white structure; while he is sleeping rays from everywhere draw cybernetic images accompanied by electronic music which creates the atmosphere of a dance party. After that, the panels are illuminated as a full moon and one body slides from one side to the other. Each movement produces a shadow that runs over the panel and the impression created is that of a person that is struggling between life and death. Then, to complete the portrait five new bodies with their shadows appear and try to grab the moving body, with the intention of taking his last breath. Suddenly, the sound of electrocardiograms floods the environment; with this, rays project over the dancer’s body. He looks as if he is receiving electric shocks and while this is occurring there is an amazing play of lights that look like Star Wars.

This is just the beginning, throughout the show there are many different expressions of the concept of the body: the body as liquid, the body as slime, a love-body, a sex-body and a dream-body, all of them drawing a fine line between reality and fantasy. As a matter of fact, the Director and Choreographer of Mortal Engine, Gideon Orbarzanek wanted to show “isolation and togetherness in a state of continual flux” and this is perfectly accomplished with the use of unique software that was created as an interactive system in which each movement generated by the bodies onstage produces an “electronic answer” in the form of lights, videos and sounds. To make it even more spectacular, the “answer” is completely different in each performance as the movements of the dancers are not always the same.

The seven performers coordinate their movements perfectly with sounds, laser and video and they do so in a variety of incarnations. In one sequence they are bacteria simulating the beginning of creation and in another sequence they portray a “slime-couple” in which the female has a world beyond her partner. In all of these sequences lights and other effects satisfy the heightened expectation of the spectators.

Mortal Engine is a “new dance-video-music-laser performance” that has been successfully presented as part of the Edinburgh International Festival, the Noordezan Festival (Netherlands), the International Festival of Art (Spain), and the Philadelphia Live Arts festival and Next Wave Festivals (the USA), the Tanzhaus festival (Germany) and the Festival de México (Mexico) in which Mortal Engine opened its doors to more than 1000 people every night. As testament to its appeal and success, at the end of the show the cast was so enthusiastically applauded that they had to leave and return to the stage no fewer than four times.

This production was created by Chunky Move Dance Company which was founded in 1995 by Gideon Orbarzanek. The intention behind this company was to redefine contemporary dance in Australia and to seek new ways of developing this performance medium in Australia. With Mortal Engine – an extremely unique production with a personal stamp - the company has most definitely fulfilled these aims.

Editor and translator: Jarrah Strunin

CHUNKY MOVE’S
MORTAL ENGINE

DIRECTION AND CHOREOGRAPHY: GIDEON OBARZANEK
INTERACTIVE SYSTEM DESIGN: FRIEDER WEISS
LASER AND SOUND ARTIST: ROBIN FOX
COMPOSER: BEN FROST
COSTUME DESIGNER: PAULA LEVIS
LIGHTING DESIGNER: DAMIEN COOPER
SET DESIGN: RICHARD DINNEN & GIDEON OBARZANEK

CAST
KRISTY AYRE, SARA BLACK, AMBER HAINES, ANTONY HAMILTON, MARNIE PALOMARES, LEE SERLE, JAMES SHANNON, ADAM SYNNOTT, CHARMENE YAP

MARCH 4 - MARCH 8
MERLYN THEATRE