Strings Attached

With limited opportunity to attract widely recognised talent, it's possibly predictable that a startup dance company's public debut would set out to distinguish itself in choreography, dance style, music, or production.  Strings Attached, Australian Dance Party’s inaugural offering, is a medley of pieces that set about distinguishing itself on all four counts.  Other than by using the one set (beautifully decorated with string nets) and more-or-less the same cast, what chiefly connects the pieces in Strings Attached is an impression that dancers and musicians alike give of improvising energetically.

Some of the work ― the opening few minutes in particular ― might challenge many conceptions of dance as following a rhythm and of music as providing one, and of both music and dance directly stimulating emotion.  That said, all the performers were disciplined and committed, strong communication both between dancers and between dancers and musicians maintaining the audience’s confidence in their work’s progress.

To me, the performance’s highlights included a highly stylised tango whose steps were, I believe, entirely novel, and a piece of modern dancing to music with some emotional charge from Jimi Hendrix.

Australian Dance Party has marked out a territory (appropriately, with string as well as through motion) that announces the arrival of new and exciting ideas.

John .P. Harvey

Photographer: Lorna Sim