Body Corp - A Dance Of Assembled Parts

Body Corp is the new project by consummate Naarm performer /artist/choreographer Sarah Aiken from Bellingen NSW. Her recent work Make Your Own Life Count premiered at The Arts House in 2022 and was a Green Room winner. Her multidisciplinary work involves technology, dance, performance and assemblage – she combines found objects and other materials into 3D compositional movements.

Aiken and her two collaborative performers, Martin Hansen and Gemma Sattler, create motion - together forming a circular mass highlighting their appendages as they shape and move slowly across the floor while audience members take their seats.

A projection of collage - surreal and body assemblages - along with poetic constructs created by Outside Eye and Text (Megan Payne) - reflects the performers in mirrors on the edge of their stage. They are present, involved and partake in their own self-reflective acts. This is the visceral precursor that will take them further into a surreal journey that will escalate them into another dimension.

Sarah Aitkin ‘warps perspective’, she ‘blurs the boundaries of bodies and creates mythical images that connect with technology and nature’.

A series of dance-like movement vignettes connect to the large TV monitors, involving body morphologies, repetition and recognition - the synchronised and casual movement promotes self-awareness and emanates dreamlike qualities graduating into surrealist performance and evolves into a magical realist landscape.

The land, ocean and natural habitat set against brutalist box shapes while the mythical mermaids engage in existential interaction exudes phantasmagorical energy that is engaging and humorous. Objects and props, devised and utilised with precision, enhance the performers cut-up actions and gestures, including ballet inspired routines along with experimental body clashes, unification and separation movement.

The staging of three horses is beguiling and ominous and the flight by majestic eagles signifies courage and strength. The finale culminates in a shadow play that vividly reconstructs the darkness and apocalyptic outcome of our natural environments.

Aiken is an extraordinary artist; her show offers exceptional experiences for her audiences and reiterates that climate change is a pressing issue in her work.

Flora Georgiou

Photographer: Gregory Lorenzutti