selfportrait24 : Ōtepoti - Dunedin
New Athenaeum Theatre
Sunday, September 8
A full house sat in silence for the performance selfportrait24: Ōtepoti - Dunedin, devised by Marcela Giesche, in the New Athenaeum Theatre yesterday afternoon.
Everyone, Giesche says, is a choreographer. One by one and in no particular order, the 24 participants enter the dance floor from the seating around its perimeter.
They dance solo and in silence according to their own patterns and thoughts.
Each is unique. Some have balletic training, others come from a yoga background, or are inspired by the veils of Isadora Duncan. All exhibit a degree of self consciousness in their two minutes of exposure.
The overall silence invites the audience to feel the dancer’s rhythm, their fragility and strength and to note the differences of each dance.
Some wrap themselves in mystery, or chase a dream while others openly relish the freedom of movement; another performer hip-hops, another attempts an arabesque while yet another dervish twirls the length and breadth of the floor.
Giesche, Otago University’s 2024 Caroline Plummer Dance Fellow in Community Dance, peppers the programme notes with inspirational quotes, culminating in her own modern dance teacher Dan Wagoner’s quip that "If everyone just knew where their pelvis was, there would be no more wars".
A convenient and perennial utopian hope, as our current trope of aggressors lead us into something resembling a tarantella, a dance to the death.
Cynicism aside, and at an communal level, dancing works to create conviviality, while connecting brain, limb and muscle in a way which is assured to lift the heart.
And if we were in any doubt of the show’s premise, the closing communal dance got everyone up on their feet, smiling.
Review by Marian Poole
