STUNNING ANCIENT TIMEWARPERS

Big Secret Theatre, October 17th, 2015

Supercharged

I woke up this morning, still swaying to an inner tidal wave of Sheri-D Wilson’s mellifluous voice backed by drums echoing my own heartbeat. Combined with Michelle Moss’ molten choreography, last night’s performance of Supercharged was intense, funny, deeply felt. A liquid phrase, the flutter of a hand or scarf, the crescendo of drumbeats all wove into a visceral experience. We only lacked a crackling campfire and white-hot stars overhead to complete the illusion of timelessness.

At first, Sheri-D’s resonant voice was alternatively soothing or tickling, fed by the mystic rhythms of Lin Elder and Georgelaine. After a while, I stopped trying to parse the poetry through my forebrain and just accepted understanding through my gut. I felt it in my hips, in my feet; trapped in my chair in the audience, I nonetheless felt elevated, transported by the surge in my blood. Michelle Moss was riveting, with every movement somehow emanating from deep within and rippling outwards to her fingertips or feet. Dancing with Sabrina Naz Comeanescu as the words and drumming started to crescendo, I could almost see echoes of movement between them, like the afterimages from a flash camera or a Norman McLaren film.

Just Words (work-in-progress)

A barefoot young man, a little shy, recites a love poem in Farsi. Two dancers, like quicksilver twins, alternate between airy balletic movements and aggressive floor work. The effect is a contrast almost violently beautiful, a sometimes wrenching choreography by Serge Bennathan. I feel a powerful push and pull created between the words and capoeira-like movements of the dancers, who one moment are whirling dervishes, and the next circling each other in a deliberate, volcanic walk. I sense they are two halves of a warring self; I hold my breath, waiting for a dance-fight to break out.

At times, I wanted to rewind and replay certain phrases in the choreography in perfect, deadly silence, to try to understand the secret signals and the power of the physical bond between the dancers. The intense physicality and intimacy of dancers Karissa Barry and Hilary Maxwell was almost a shock to this mostly sedentary writer. On alert, I was on the edge of my seat until the last faint words from Aryo Khakpour, facing away from the audience, mingled with the dancers’ undulating hands, stroking a single beam of light like a living thing.

Tamara Lee is a technical writer, narrative artist and placemaking ninja who loves words, words, words. And great public spaces. And cats.