The last time we saw Stephanie Lake’s troupe was at RISING in 2022, when nine dancers collaborated with nine drummers in the heart-thumping choreographic and musical feat that was Manifesto. This time round, Lake has up the ante. Although it only goes for a little over an hour, the production feels epic in its ambitious reach.
Yet to even call it a dance performance does The Chronicles a disservice; while it certainly showcases the rigour and beauty of the human body, the production is a multidisciplinary one that corrals all elements of the stage: sound, set design, costume and lighting to offer us a beguiling survey of the cycles of life in all its seasons. It’s no accident that birth and death bookend the show.
The Chronicles starts quietly, humbly even, with a dancer spotlit in a foetal curl. She looks like a recent hatchling stretching out her limbs. A slow soft, heartbeat can be heard. There’s a palpable sense of newborn vulnerability in the way she moves. The stage is then swarmed by a group of 10 that diverges in different combinations and permutations: solo, in pairs and in threes. Welcome to the world, little one.
All of a sudden there’s a sense of chaos and urgency that heralds the interconnectedness of humans, and the way we have to navigate our own way, aided and hindered by others. Succumbing to peer group pressure then splintering off to test your individuality against the pack mentality are all played out with the grace, precision and strength expected and demanded of professional dancers. Robin Fox’s soundscape changes throughout the production: the composition includes pulsating, electro, jagged, hums and clicks, staccato bullet-like and deeper, primal beats.
There are various segmented pieces in this production, with appropriate tonal shifts. The next section involves a children’s choir – The Yarra Voices – and their choral entreaties. Almost ghostly in white tunics, they stand in ethereal contrast to the earthy-toned costumes of the dancers. They hold lamps as they sing, perhaps bearing metaphorical beacons of hope when all else is subsumed in darkness.
First positioned above the dancers, in their own discrete space surrounded by tall grasses as though otherworldly entities presiding over and bearing witness to the action that’s playing out, they gradually move down to the main arena – otherwise bare – and frame the performers in a semi-circle formation. The song sung is ‘Ah Poor Bird’, the plaintive lyrics of which include: “take your flight far above the sorrows of this sad night”. Are they signalling the realm of the spiritual in our lives, or maybe the nostalgic pull of childhood innocence? No matter, the beauty of contemporary dance is that it’s as open to interpretation as a poem: suggestve and descriptive but not prescriptive.
Another episode has the dancers – now in flowing skirts – move in and out of squares of lighting designed by Bosco Shaw; there’s a sense of violence and unease here as they struggle to remain in the box, as it were, trapped in rigid strictures of expectations. This section feels as though they are machinery cogs with the loud, jagged music that accompanies their movements.
The segue to the next phase of life is visually spectacular as the stage is filled with an abundance of what looks like hay. In contrast to the verdant greenery that surrounded the choir earlier, these dried fibres mark another seasonal change: from growth to harvest. Initially flung about and stamped upon by the performers with recklessness and joy, what begins as a game becomes ominous as one of them is set upon by the others and buried in the hay. It’s a precursor to the final act: death.
Fittingly a figure in black is now curled up, closed-in and unmoving.
The Chronicles is a supersonic sensitive beast that breathes in the fragility of life in a series of emotional, visceral transitions.
At first it seems incongruous, to have baritone soloist Oliver Mann sing that well-known 80s hit ‘Forever Young’, right when the end is near. But perhaps it’s a deliberate provocation, because on our death bed what else would we turn to but memories when we were unburdened with the responsibilities of adulthood?
The Chronicles
Stephanie Lake Company
Playhouse, Arts Centre Melbourne
Choreographer: Stephanie Lake
Composer: Robin Fox
Lighting Designer: Bosco Shaw
Set Designer: Charles Davis
Costume Designer: Harriet Oxley
Conductor (RISING) and Choir Consultant: Renee Heron, The Yarra Voices
Producer: Beth Raywood Cross
Production Manager: Lisa Osborn
Rehearsal Director and Bodywork Therapist: Paea Leach
Associate Lighting Designer and Console Programmer: Rhys Pottinger
Sound Engineer: James Wilkinson
Stage Manager: Lyndie Li Wan Po
Costume Makers: Jo Foley, Fiona Holley, Emma Ikin, Kym Yeow
Dancers: Max Burgess, Rachel Coulson, Tra Mi Dinh, Tyrel Dulvarie, Marni Green, Ashley McLellan, Darci O’Rourke, Harrison Ritchie-Jones, Georgia Rudd, Robert Tinning, Kimball Wong, Jack Ziesing
Solo Vocalist: Oliver Mann
Children’s Choir (RISING): The Yarra Voices
The Chronicles will be performed until 15 June 2025 as part of RISING Festival.
