If there’s one thing the recent FIFA World Cup taught us – or reminded those of us already well aware – it was that old chestnut about football being a game of two halves. And that no matter how clearly things seem to be going one way in the first half, after the break, the turnaround can be extraordinarily dramatic.
(Especially if you’re looking at a third place play-off and 4-0 before halftime somehow winds up as 6-4 at full time. Thank you, France and England – what sublime entertainment!)
But guess what? The same can also be true in the world of contemporary dance. Vista by Stephanie Lake Company is absolutely a two-pronged affair.
Vista review – quick links
Setting the scene
For the first half, the six dancers – Rachel Coulson, Tyrel Dulvarie, Marni Green, Hugo Poulet, Robert Tinning and Georgia Van Gils – are dressed in shades of grey. The choreography is spiky and precise but the vibe is as dispassionate as those colourless costumes.
For regular Lake audiences, there’s a familiarity about the movements – explosive, angular and furiously energetic – but there’s a certain dampening of the effect too, as if the dancers are going through the motions, rather than being fully immersed in the subtext of the piece. This, however, is deliberate.
At one point we see a pair of lovers or, perhaps, exes. She is clinging on, literally, but does she really care or is she just being performative, going through the ritual of how one is expected to behave in this scenario?
There’s apparent bullying, with five dancers facing up to one sole performer, who’s left alone upstage in a spotlight. As the pulsating score (courtesy of composer and sound designer Robin Fox) ebbs and bursts into life sporadically, the six come together, are flung apart and split into pairs, before reconfiguring into different duos or groupings. But still what the audience is presented with is technical rather than emotive, precise or fragmented but not an invitation to empathy.
We’re not in Kansas anymore
But then comes the break followed by act two. And just like Dorothy opening the door of Aunt Em and Uncle Henry’s farmhouse once the tornado has had its way with it in The Wizard of Oz, the monochrome has been ousted in favour of the brightest of living colours. As the dancers, now clad in shades of orange, yellow and red, revisit Vista, the vignettes and the concepts presented in the first act reverberate and repeat, but this time with greater urgency.
Once more with feeling just about sums it up.
Everything is just a little bit more this time around. The dancers even begin to vocalise, with fragments of spoken text forming an overall hubbub, but with the odd word becoming distinguishable above the rest.
Meanwhile the gestures become more pronounced and more laden with intent. Mouths are covered, thumbs go up, and the V for victory is flashed in passing. Then the ganging up of five bodies against one is replicated, but this time with the victim downstage, nearer the audience. Does being closer to the one singled out enable the audience to experience the humiliation more viscerally?
Conflict is a constant. Tugs of war, faux boxing bouts and clinging couples all reappear.
The program notes tell us that the performance ‘wrestles with the slipperiness of perception … a reflection on the fragile line between fact and belief’. How much of the nuances of that description would be obvious to a viewer without the benefit of said notes is a question worth asking though. Like much contemporary dance, the execution is abstract and the meaning often obscure.
Vista has a lot to live up to
Is that important? Can Vista simply be enjoyed for its visual pleasures alone, and the undoubted skills and dynamism of the dancers? Undoubtedly. As can the input of frequent collaborator Bosco Shaw, who also provided the lighting design for previous Stephanie Lake productions Double Blind, Replica and Colossus. Or the costumes, courtesy of the Melbourne-based fashion label Alpha60, following hot on the heels of the brand’s collaboration with revered designer Jon Goulder during the most recent Melbourne Design Week.
It’s merely that, following some of the company’s other works, particularly 2020’s thrilling Colossus, 2022’s Manifesto and last year’s absolutely breathtaking The Chronicles, Vista does appear a somewhat more modest contribution from the company.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Not every game of football has to see the ball hit the back of the net 10 times or have you leaping out of your seat with utterly unbridled enthusiasm. Sometimes you can just sit back and admire the artistry.
