Baxter Festival of Dance - a personal view

It was with relish that I heard about a pending performance from a dance friend of mine, Lindi. I enjoy watching dance, especially the kind that she generally gets involved in, but it is not often that I do that, apart from when she is involved. I guess it's just something we should do – i.e. support our friends in their endeavours – to me it's just what friends do, I think I'd be watching someone play tiddly winks if that was there thing.

Anyway...the particular event in view is known as the Baxter Festival of dance. As far as I can tell, it is a new venture put on by the baxter theatre to showcase young up and coming dance talent. Every evening had a differnet program and a particularly eclectic one at that. I guess it's a useful platform because there is no commercial driver – the artists get free reign to express themselves and explore new boundaries without being concerned with admin or worrying about whether it will sell. Besides, these kinds of things typically have that feel good factor – the aunt and her dog come just because Mary is dancing (apologies to the perfomers).

Anyway... back to the evening.

Like I said, I enjoy these kinds of evenings, and I think on this partiuclar evening there were about 20 different pieces, ranging from the classic contemporary dance kinds of pieces to pieces where it would be difficult to even call them dance. So they cater to everyone's taste. There were some solo dances, some small group and some big group, some where the spectacle is more important, others where the message is paramount.

Before I get to look at my friend's piece, I 'll just mark some other highlights from the evening.

There were a couple of particular interesting pieces, probably the most controversial piece was a work on Child abuse. The announcer indicated before the performance that there would be nudity in the piece. I think he should have said that this piece carries an age restricton of 16 for nudity and sex, because hell, that was hectic. Certainly the most disturbing piece I have ever seen.

I think what was the most interesting about that piece was that you would battle to categorise it as dance as such. It's fits better into the “Arts” genre – and I think the reason for that is that the message is the fundamental aspect. In other words, take away the message and there is nothing. I think what makes dance unique is that it does not require a message or a meaning in order for it to have value. Very often when I watch dancing, although the message might be clear to the initiated, I lose it completely, but still get a lot out of it, either by creating my own message or just enjoying the spectacle.

In this case the message was clear and it was brutal. Apparently a lot of the people did in fact leave after that piece. It's certainly not something I would have wanted my mother to see. I had never seen nudity in a piece before nor had I witnessed such a no holds barred approach, and I don't think I liked it. Thought to be honest, it did bring memories of the road safety adverts I saw in New Zealand – very brutal, and very effective. Sometimes taking no prisoners, gets the message across.

Lindi's piece bore the hallmarks of her work. Always innovative, always looking for new ways to look at the art form and what can be done through dance. She invariably produces something that is more than just a spectacle – and I think that is her strength and possibly also indicates something about her.

In this case the theme concerned a women who had lost a loved one – a sweet innocent girl who has a lover, soul mate and friend taken from her. The way this message was conveyed I felt was partiuclarly clever – a chair was repeatedly knocked down until it was not put back up.

One way that innovation came through, and possibly the best thing about the piece, it gave it its effect and depth, was how it was self contained. That's a unique way to describe a dance performance, for how can a dance performance be “self contained”. Well by that I mean that there was no third party. In general, the sound track which accompanies a piece of dance is the third party. It is the factor into which the piece needs to fit. It tends to have it's own message, not always in line with what is going on and thus brings an element disjointness to the performance. What I mean is, if an artist is trying to say something, they may not find a piece of music which exactly fits what they are trying to do and thus something is lost, “Lost in Translation” as it were.

In this case there was no third party, the performers provided the music as well as the dance. The piece had 4 dancers – it's actually not entirely accurate to call them dancers as they were musicians as well. The one member providing the vocal backing and the other applying a haunting melody on a particularly ostentatious marimba. The vocalist was clearly well trained and very good – actually quite beautiful.

It must have been quite an interesting dynamic in the creative process, being able to work the musicians into the piece, and I think that they were quite cleverly and creatively used. There was no sense of their dual roles – You didn't notice that they were both dancers and musicians.

Overall I enjoyed the piece, the message was clear – as is Lindi'a bent, full of emotion and how can I say, poignancy. You clearly got a sense of the angst the protagonist was going through. It was quite a powerful work in that sense. There were a number of clever techniques, especially the use of a small table which the performers sat around and moved the arms to create patterns. Quite eye catching.

It would be interesting to see where Lindi's creativity would go if she was given a full complement of dancers to work, it is a pity – because it would be interesting to see what she would produce. I think it would be a challenge for her to maximise the spectacle.

All in all however, I enjoyed the evening, and I enjoyed Lindi's piece. I look forward to the next one.