Dance: The Memory Progressive
By Emily Hollosy • Mar 2nd, 2010 • Section: Performance, Reviews
The Memory Progressive
Phantom Limbs
fortyfivedownstairs
February 24 – 27, 2010
Organically beautiful. That was the phrase that eventually morphed out of my brain as I attempted to grapple with the right collection of adjectives in the English language to describe The Memory Progressive.
I was slightly apprehensive as I settled into the piece, by emerging dance company Phantom Limbs. More familiar with theatre than with dance performance, I was uncertain about devoting myself to watching an art form I didn’t feel I could really appreciate for a whole hour. I was wrong.
I came away feeling I had witnessed a live portrayal of a sort of kaleidoscope of black-clad limbs and bodies that moved together, at times in staccato, and at other times in fluid motion. The performers seemed to form a sort of mechanical machine with cogs and moving parts that circled around each other, weaving in and out, sometimes copying, sometimes mirroring, nearly always moving in two pairs coming toward a central focus point, perhaps orbiting around each other, and then scaling back out again.
The piece wasn’t entirely focused on dance and the body itself. Central to the work were themes of memory loss, the role of technology in mental reconstruction, and the phenomenon of telepathy. Although, in a very ‘posty’ performance – post-apocoloyptic and post-dramatic – the audience could add any number of meanings.
Pivotal points of the narrative occurred in a sequence at the start that was repeated later in the piece. Here the four performers shouted and pouted. It appeared that there was a death, although no one knew who was killed or why or how or by who, and none could remember what had happened, despite the attempts to provoke memory through sensory images.
Music and lighting (James P Brown) were crucial to the piece, adding to the tone of the moving limbs; at times fluid and gentle, at other times mechanic and jarring. They revoked the narrative by aiding sensory layers of meaning to the search for memory and identity, forming a nice juxtaposition to the slow erasure of sensors that the performers faced. Blankly vacant polaroid portraits, eye masks, earphones and balaclavas wiped out their identity and rendered them monotonous, faceless bodies.
The piece could have been slightly shorter – I did on occasion tune out to the monotony of music and movement. Although on later reflection my reaction was probably telling and added to the overall sense that the repetition of mechanics, and even of life, can leave the watcher or the participant numb and unable to engage or maintain concentration.
The highlight of the performance occurred between the two male performers (James Welsby and Rennie McDougall), their bodies like swan’s necks circling around each other as they both tried to break out of a web while simultaneously being drawn back into it by the other and by their own desire to remain together.
All together it was beautiful to watch, at times stylised and precise, at other times organic and liquid. As mentioned, my lack of knowledge of choreographic styles makes me a bit of a novice when it comes to describing these works, but my performance-art savvy friends tell me the ‘chory’ was fabulous — all thanks to the talented work of Amy MacPherson and James Welsby.
The Memory Progressive was performed by Phantom Limbs founders Amy Macpherson and James Welsby and new members Lily Paskas, and Rennie McDougall. Composed and animated by James P Brown and choreographed by Amy MacPherson and James Welsby.
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