AFTERGLOW is PACT’s premiere presentation season showcasing early career artists. Generations is a new format comprising two differing works: Humanoid and Threshold:NRC that aim to build a cross generational conversation that contextualises the work of early career artists within a broad framework. The event is curated by PACT’s Artistic Director Katrina Douglas.
The first piece, entitled Humanoid, provoked more questions than supplying a result or clear meaning. Granted, it is not the responsibility of art to provide answers to life’s dilemmas, though it should clearly state a purpose and intent. Program notes inform me that it is intended to be a blur, a tease, a reflection, In this new solo piece by Cloé Fournier animal and human converge to become a hybrid creature born from cultural socialization. Ms Fournier continues to write that by embodying the female form as the absolute centre of attention she examines the metamorphosis of the female entity obliged to constantly adapt to a demanding society or to reconfigure, as a means of survival.
The staging of the work was imaginative, employing promenade presentation. Our focus was also constantly on the move with the levels, corners and lighting, along with a very fine sound system available at PACT were very well utilised. Elegant and precise stage assistance was supplied by Brianna Newton. That I found the content dated, as if I was at an early 1970s happening might very well be its intention – that the travails of womanhood have not bettered over the last 50 years of push and pull. Pay inequality, objectification, and the MeToo campaign attest to that. However I do interpret the final image of a bird taking flight, albeit encumbered by wings heavily-laden with take-away containers, as a potential image of hope and liberation.
Plastic links the two pieces. Dean Walsh’s cunning work has it all. Both intimate and epic it entertains and educates. We sit in an informal set up while Mr Walsh is constantly on the move, naturally as a dancer but also as our narrator and guide through the threats to our planet. He brings the issue of the disposable society to our own shores. A simple seabed is contrasted with what lurks on the surface – Man’s detritus. Mr Walsh does not hold back in bringing the point home. To mention it here would blow his most effective, thrilling and abundant coup-de-theatre. Needless to say it is something to behold. www.dean-walsh.com
Some dozen years ago Dr Glenn Albrecht (www.psychoterratica) coined two new words: Solastalgia – the homesickness you have when you are still at home, and a proposed antidote to this condition Soliphilia – the solid solidarity generated to do something about our ailing world. We are often told that change is with the people and Threshold:NRC brings this home. Worried as I may be that we are already beyond the threshold Dean Walsh’s piece ends with a practical and life affirming task. The dance, movement and text is underpinned with a riveting score of original compositions and other pieces from the likes of Yoko Ono, Joan Baez, and Antony and The Johnsons. The production values were of the highest order.
This is a highly recommended event and plays very well in contract to Fournier’s Humanoid.
Mark G Nagle – Theatre Now
Photography: Dean Walsh
Afterglow: Generations
Cloé Fournier and Dean Walsh
13 – 16 June 2018
Wed – Sat 7pm
Venue: PACT Centre for Emerging Artists
Theatre Company: PACT Centre for Emerging Artists
Duration: 2 hours including interval
