Here We Are Amongst You

Here We Are Amongst You
Devised & performed by the Rawcus Ensemble: Clem Baade, Michael Buxton, Harriet Devlin-Dunbar, Rachel Edward, Nilgun Guven, Joshua Lynzaat, Paul Matley, Mike McEvoy, Ryan New, Kerryn Poke, Louise Riisik, Prue Stevenson & Danielle der Borsch. Arts House, North Melbourne. 29 June – 10 July 2022

Voom!  The lights go up from black and the members of the Rawcus Ensemble reveal themselves one at a time in movement - by running across the playing space to a definite percussive beat.  Then they’re coming from all directions, criss-crossing, turning, leaving…

We, the audience, not sure what to expect, are seated in a large single tier circle around the circumference.  We have been told not to worry, that we don’t have to do anything.  But what we do is pay attention to a show with no words, only movement.  And it is up to us to interpret – or not – what we see.  The role of director Kate Sulan would be hard to define.  Most likely her work is shaping and structuring and drawing out the ideas and moves of the ensemble.

The performers – ‘with diverse minds, bodies and imaginations’, as the program correctly tells us – and diverse costumes from ballgowns to overalls – run with purpose, with energy, with exuberance, but each in their own way.  Later, some will stroll.  Almost all will dance.  Some will dance alone outside the circle only to be drawn in and included.  Some will arrive and leave singly, or they will arrive in groups, or groups will join a single performer – or vice versa.  It is particularly moving when a performer is alone on stage – dancing perhaps in their very own way – and a tight group moves briskly, determinedly, to join and surround that performer – not in a menacing way, not in a smothering or inhibiting way, but in a supporting, protecting, and helping way.

The music and sound design by Jethro Woodward develop from strict percussion to just perceptible rhythms to lyrical flights.  Richard Vabre’s lighting directs our attention and emphasises new passages and switches in performer.

The essence of Here We Are Amongst You is to emphasise difference and, at the same time, the group.  The name of the group (now twenty-two years old) combines ‘raw’ and ‘circus’ and raucous and comes close to defining their show.  What is striking is the warmth of smiles and the eye contact.  This is a cohesive group, held together by their cooperative choreography and their practised knowledge and acceptance of each other.  Much of the time it is as if they are oblivious of the audience, almost excluding us, and aware only of each other. 

There are times – moments - when passages or sequences of movement are opaque, but we are soon enough drawn back in.  The ensemble evokes feelings rather than meanings in the audience.  Towards the end, the performers cover the whole playing space with various pieces of brightly coloured cloth – clothing, curtains, table clothes, bed covers – and then some make a bed of what they have done, while others clear small spaces to dance or greet their fellows…

It would be possible to describe, point by point, what the Rawcus Ensemble does across the space of an hour, but it would likely sound either banal or mysterious, and not do it justice.  Suffice to say that for us, the audience, the title of the show makes perfect sense by the end.  Our circle has surrounded the performers and made a space for them.  By the end, they are outside the circle, surrounding us.

The Rawcus Ensemble creates connections and a mysterious warmth: we see it in them, and they give it to us.

Michael Brindley

Photographer: Sarah Walker

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