Connected
Chunky Moves
Malthouse Theatre
Tickets: $21-$49 +bf
Until March 20
malthousetheatre.com.au
Ten minutes in and I was certainly feeling out of my depth. Granted my dance and movement knowledge is limited at best – and by limited I mean whatever I’ve picked up off fleeting episodes of So You Think You Can Dance – but this was beyond comprehension.
Looking around everyone else seemed entranced. Thoughts were running through my head: I should have brought an utterly artsy friend with me to translate; maybe I should just bail now before anyone realises I don’t have a clue what’s going on – but I was sitting front and centre.
Luckily, it turns out, because the world premier of Chunky Move’s Connected was by far the most wickedly complex, yet strangely enthralling, performance I have seen. They say when you’re pushed outside your comfort zone, you learn – and learn I did.
Connected, part of Dance Massive 2011, is a collaborated work of kinetic sculptor Reuben Margolin and artistic director Gideon Obarzanek. Together they have pushed the boundaries of physics and mathematics, then combined human elements, to ask the question, what constitutes art?
Space and time are used to collapse the divide between the human and the human construct, as a seventeenth century industrially inspired apparatus is put together piece by piece. As the sculpture is built, developing in real time, so too is the storyline. Relationships evolve from precise, simple and tight movements, into a complex chaos of symmetry across scale.
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Connected though, is the ever present theme of transcendence. The building, animating, cutting and phasing, of light, music and movement, combine forces with plot to remind the audience that life is a constant revelation.
This is a performance that is unique in every sense of the word. It’s intellectually stimulating and physically amazing. So if you’re feeling the need to expand your mind hole, my suggestion is to quickly run along to Malthouse Theatre, it’s only playing for a limited time.
