Dance collaboration

Press, 11 October 1986, Page 8

Dance collaboration

A Collaboration between Broawyn Judge and Don McGlasban, sculptural manoeuvres, dance chant and original music, presented by the Flying Buttress Company at the Great Hall, Arts Centre, Friday, October 10. Reviewed by John Farnsworth. The advertisement for Flying Buttress is nothing if not confusing. It is a company, in fact, of five young dancers from Oamaru on a South Island tour and the announced collaboration between Bronwyn Judge and Don McGlashan seems to amount to no more than each having provided one half of the two-part programme. The show begins with the dancers emerging in bodystockings painted with landscapes for Bronwyn Judge’s "Sculptural Manoeuvres,” arriving in a huge open wheel which symbolises, among other things, birth and the world. From here they develop, in eight short sentences, a picture off the purity of New

nature being despoiled by the arrival of the pakeha. Each sequence is portrayed in a mixture of dance and chant with the sea, for example, depicted by slow movements and sounds to represent lapping waves. As an idea, it is both fairly familiar and often too literal and the sequences which work best are those which expand beyond the basic concept, such as the sharp, jerky duet for “The Fantail.” However, it builds as it proceeds, allowing the dancers to loosen up and express themselves with increasing energy. Once they do this, their confidence grows and the performance begins to come properly to life. By contrast, Don McGlashan’s “We Are the Cars” is a quirky, whimsical piece wich tells the tale of some ancient, rusting cars conversing among themselves in a cold Oamaru car-park. With a cast list comprising a 1971 Hillman Avenger, a van of unknown origin, a

1951 Morris Minor, and others it is a kind of paeon to the culture of New Zealand’s ageing car fleet. The performers, taking the part of the cars, responded warmly to the inventive dottiness of the script, breaking the narrative with rhythmical chants and percussive effects from various spare car parts. Sometimes their voices were drowned by the Great Hall’s reverberations, but they displayed good timing and a feeling of enthusiasm which communicated itself to the audience. From the performers — Megan Tuffery, Arahi Wooldridge, Louise O’Neill, James McCarthy, and Alistair Newton — this is a competent, obviously thoroughly rehearsed performance. They lack a little confidence but, as they showed later in the show, that will not be long in coming. As they stand, they have the makings of a well balanced,able troupe who shouldfmake the most of their tour as it proceeds.