Get a Grip

Performed by Trace elements

Arts House - North Melbourne Town Hall
May 6, 2008

In darkness, an athlete slowly rolls his heavily taped wrists, warming up, preparing. As the light gradually shifts, more black-clad men appear, stealthily moving through a metal scaffold like urban warriors. The energy builds as the men test themselves against their surroundings, now balancing on a handrail, now leaping over a waist-high cube. A climax is reached as the six performers hurl themselves in sequence over two large cubes spaced a metre apart, travelling at great speed and yet landing with ease.

These lithe and muscular men are members of Trace elements, local practitioners of parkour and free running, recently developed artforms that require incredible strength and agility. With directorial assistance from Natalie Cursio, the group have developed GET A GRIP, a performance which also features filmed sequences of their amazing feats on, over and around well-known Melbourne city landscapes.

Created in a documentary style, the film demonstrates how practising parkour allows one to travel quickly through space, running, jumping and climbing obstacles rather than simply following the footpath. The men move so fluidly through the air and along the ground they could almost be wild animals, fleeing predators or chasing prey.

The live element, however, is very human, including precarious balances, acrobatic flips, breathtaking leaps and tricks on the purpose-built set. Most of the stunts are performed solo, yet some of the most thrilling moments involve synchronised movement, particularly when the entire cast leaps simultaneously onto and over the scaffold.

The whole production is tightly edited and flows surprisingly well between film and live performance. Unfortunately the seating (or lack thereof) is a problem, with no chairs provided for the audience at all.

The closing image of the company climbing over the arch of the pedestrian bridge at Southbank as pedestrians pass underneath is a brilliant demonstration of how parkour and free running can allow us to look at our landscape in new and liberating ways.

(Originally published in The Age newspaper)

Blazeblue Oneline

Choreographed by Antony Hamilton
Arts House - Meat Market, North Melbourne
April 30, 2008

Inspired by hip hop culture, Antony Hamilton’s first full length work features live graffiti and dance, presented with a tongue-in-cheek attitude.

Wavering between serious and silly, Hamilton weaves visual art and dance together. At times the experiment is clear, as Hamilton works on a graffiti design, his performance partner Luke Smiles performs similar movements without a spray can, demonstrating the physical element inherent in the activity. While Hamilton does his best to spray quickly, the tempo and energy tends to drop when he turns his back to the audience. Other sections are more abstract, with hip hop postures thrown in amongst the contemporary dance moves.

Breaking up the focus on graffiti are random moments of humour and imagination. A pair of cardboard boxes perform a very cute duet, spinning, popping and caressing, before a remote control mini-van drives across the stage. Super-size cardboard cut-out puppets make an appearance, as does a brilliantly constructed cardboard robot monster, performed by Stuart Shugg.

The set and lighting by Bluebottle play a large part, right from the outset of the performance when swathes of light arc across the space like paint from a spray can. The white performance space is gradually overtaken by Hamilton’s abstract, angular line drawings and colourful paintwork, both of which find echoes in the movement material.

Hamilton clearly has a good eye for design, and both he and Smiles are seasoned performers, yet some elements still seem a little sketchy. The mixture of dance and painting is a risky proposition, and it doesn’t always come off well. The final sequence, painted under ultraviolet light, ends in an attractive design, but the process of creating it is a little flat. Yet even if there are a couple of low points, it’s hard not to enjoy a performance by such charismatic artists.

(Originally published in The Age newspaper)