Tilted Fawn

Berlin-based contemporary dance artist Melanie Lane and UK electronic musician CLARK (WARP Records) have joined together for the second time to create a solo dance work that explores the physical realm within composite lo-fi sonic landscapes; an investigation into sound as a morphological structure, where the phonic and corporeal come together as a whole.

Tilted Fawn has a classic three-act structure where each ‘act’ possesses a very precise visual configuration – a concentrated mosaic of moments – to bring forth its complex contours.

Lane’s choreography in the first instance is minimalist, geometric and restrained, focussing on the object in relation to the body. This sequence is reminiscent of Beckett’s Quad, a performance based on a sequence of geometrical figures and variations of regular movements. Seemingly driven by a series of small impulses, Lane methodically arranges a number of identical boxes with exactitude. Each finite shape created by the boxes forms a number of images, the interpretation of which is very open and up to the viewer: a montage of people, urban landscapes or domestic spaces, perhaps. Or, if viewed as the visual component to the soundscape, a manifestation of the equalisation process, which adjusts the strength of frequencies within a signal.

CLARK’s composition here matches Lane’s restraint: with tape machines inserted into a number of the boxes, he has created an ensemble of lo-fi textures: an atmosphere that feels like it is delivered down a phone line; an abstract, removed construction that deliberately strips back to a clinical tremor to accompany the controlled precision of movement. CLARK’s composition could fit within the musical philosophy known as ‘Hauntology’, an aesthetic developed around Jacques Derrida's concept of the same name which can be connected to a sense of “weaving the present through the past”. The term is used for artists working with ‘haunted’ sonics; music resonating with the emotions of past analogue and digital shadows. The artist explores the past, in this case via a series of urban and pastoral field samples delivered through tape players, in a series of resonating echoes of intangible elements from times past.

Lane goes on to build a sturdy structure that could be likened to a large apartment block, an image supported by the layers of urban sounds built on top of each other: planes, motors, radio talk-back, and crying babies. Lane reaches into the block – and into the sound, if you like – becoming one with it. She is plugged in to an energy that seems to drain and pull at her. Eventually, the noise of the baby’s cry is isolated, stripped back and funnelled back to us. Removed of its humanity, it becomes the sound of a lone gull, forlorn, relentless and oppressive. Lane ‘unplugs’ and leaves the space, and the audience is uncomfortably left alone with the pitiful cry.

Lane re-enters the space in a flesh-coloured bodysuit pulled over platform shoes, giving her the appearance of a hoofed creature, a Faunus-like spirit in a new, technological, context. She unleashes her energy, anger and desire, fighting against the constraints built up in the first movement. Bold, brash, slightly grotesque but ultimately beautiful, she lets loose her kinetic pulse. Her skill in body isolation and articulation is simultaneously fluid and finely controlled. The accompanying soundscape becomes deeply visceral. A full, warm, liquid clamour fills the space like the first slow deliberate drops of rain hitting a window, which break and roll down the glass, pressing and driving her forward into an ecstatic state.

In the final phase, Lane returns to her object exploration. This time, she takes the foundation of what has gone before and creates a more complicated regime, a possible physical simile for CLARK’s analogue recordings fused to create electronic musings of aural complexity. Lane’s choreography is seamless: laden with an abundance of boxes, she explores how to move from A to B in one movement and not leave a single box behind. The more difficult this becomes, the more the sound oppresses her. There is a build of noise akin to the reverberation of a sub-woofer that has electrically surged and then been trapped in a vacuum. The intensity of the bass finally pushes her to the floor and holds her there as if by an increase in gravity. The sound holds the audience in a breathless state, as though bound in a corset. Lane miraculously pushes through this tension, driving her objects to their final destination. CLARK’s dystopian pulse finally relents, releasing all and leaving a visceral echo of all that has taken place.

Tilted Fawn is an effective piece within Lane’s growing oeuvre forming a choreographic relationship between objects, sound and visual design. This collaborative effort with CLARK is visually engaging, cerebrally challenging and aurally intricate.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

The Blue Room Theatre Summer Nights in association with PICA present
Tilted Fawn

Concept, Choreography, Dance: Melanie Lane
Sound Composition and Installation: CLARK
Artistic Collaboration: Morgan Belenguer
Dramaturgy: Bart Van den Eynde
Production Management: Doreen Markert
Costume/Props: Melanie Lane
Lighting Design: Max Stelzl

PICA Performance Space, 53 James Street Northbridge
7 February–12 February, 2012
Bookings: www.fringeworld.com.au