Amplification
BalletLab
The Malthouse Theatre
March 22 – March 26
Tickets: $21-$49 (+ bf)
malthousetheatre.com.au
“It is an amazing piece to perform. It is incredibly phsyical, it is rigorous and exciting. The sound score is something that I love working to. It is an incredibly charged work and it is very dancey and choreographic.”
Having performed in it in while it was in its development stage in 1998, Brooke Stamp, back then a student at VCA, is no stranger to Phillip Adams’ Amplification.
Stamp has more than a little connection to Amplification, the highly-acclaimed study of the first 1.6 seconds post car-crash. While many creatives get bored of a project and move on at a quick pace, it is immediately obvious that Stamp finds working with Adams on Amplification as enthralling as when she was a student over a decade ago.
With a real light in her eyes, Stamp’s passion is infectious. A world class performer, whose talent has seen her work with some of the greatest dance companies globally, from Chunky Move through to Co Motion Dance Company, it is clear that Amplification holds a special place in her heart. While, she admits that at the time of its launch a decade ago, it was viewed globally as radical and genre altering, these days, the piece feels a bit retro.
“A lot of the work is heavily choregoraphic compared to more recent work. We’ve been joking that it is retro.
It has this really retro feel for us now, but there is a whole new generation who it will really relate to and really appeal to. The younger students who I teach now, would have been 10 years old when it came out. So there is a whole new wave of people who will find it quite cutting edge and pretty wild.”
While for Stamp the piece is old hat, she clearly gets a thrill from the chance to broaden the mind of the younger dance enthusiast. But Stamp is equally adamant that the appeal of Amplification is not tied down to the dance going audience. With a blinding score provided by live by turntablist Lynton Carr, Amplification is a frenzy inducing experience with universal appeal. But turntablist aside, what can an audience member expect of Amplification?
“The 1.6 seconds is about how it expands in time. It stretches out. It is a microscopic look into this moment in time and the threshold of physical exertion that we would experience in those rough and tumble moments. It’s title Amplification is really what we are looking at, amplified sounds and sensory experiences. For example, one of the dancers, there is a trio where one of the dancers has a hood over her head and she doesn’t see anything, so how is it for her to have us manipulating her body without her sense of sight. There is a lot of thrash, throwing each other around,” says Stamp.
With the inner complexities of a short moment in time explored at great length, Amplification is far from an easy mind. While not intentionally setting out to shock, the open rawness and honesty of Adams’ choreography is far from relaxed viewing. However, at the core of the Amplification appeal has always been the sensational dance values.
“Philip is on the edge. I don’t think he belongs to a camp,” suggests Stamp.
“This is why I have been with the company for so long. He is an experimentalist. He makes work according to what is stimulating him the world. This is where the company sits and how the work evolves. This piece, I wouldn’t like to go on too much about it being retro, at the time, twelve years ago, it blew everyone out of the water. Not everyone is able to stomach it.”
