A World Turned Upside down

Records are for keeping. A record of the past in permanent form, an account. An official report. The sum of past achievements. The best, most remarkable event of its kind, a world record, no less. A record, too, a thin plastic disc which carries sound in the grooves of its surface, unlocked by the needle of a record player. Records can be ‘set straight’ or entrusted ‘off the record.’ To record is to remember, to commit to memory. So what then of a “New World Record”?

Performance

The Australian Ballet: “Bodytorque: New World Record”

Place

The Show Room, Arts Centre Melbourne, October 31, 2024

Words

Gracia Haby

Photograph by Brodie James

What springs to mind? Well, to Adam Elmes, Yuiko Masukawa, Benjamin Garrett, Jill Ogai, Erin O’Rourke, and Serena Graham, when tasked with creating new choreographic worlds from such a prompt as those three weightier than might first appear words—‘new,’ ‘world,’ and ‘record’—what sprung to mind was a diverse medley of the humorous, sporting, cyclical, and recurrent history. Or in the words of Resident Choreographer and making her debut as Bodytorque Mentor, Stephanie Lake, “inventive, current, funny, smart and surprising.”[1] And so six choreographers afforded the framework, as Lake described, “to throw something at the wall and see if it sticks,”did just that on a Thursday eve in the newly carved, black-box space, the Show Room, at the Arts Centre.[2]

Hunkered between the Playhouse and the marble-filled walls of the Amcor Lounge, the space might be intimate, but the Australian Ballet’s Bodytorque program, now in its twentieth year, called for a big, broad, challenging theme. A chance to create a new world record in a different vein to the recent Guinness World Record for the largest assembly of dancers ‘en pointe’ within a minute.[3] A chance, as coryphée Elmes explored in his first choreographic work, “Champing at the bit,” to work it “until you vomit.” In this playful work, to open the program, Elmes coached, by overhead voiceover, “don’t turn your head. Don’t trip. Pump the legs,” layering an ‘in the studio’ vibe to Ergo Phizmiz’s electronic composition Worldwide Waybill.[4] Working Annabelle Watt and Bryce Latham, later superseded by Larissa Kiyoto-Ward and Isobelle Dashwood, Hugo Dumapit and Samara Merrick, until they expired, “who will you be if you can’t keep running?”

“Standing on a Rising Wave” by Yuiko Masukawa. Photograph by Brodie James

Interspersed between the works of dancers of the Australian Ballet, two choreographers, Masukawa, recipient of the 2023 Telstra Emerging Choreographer award for her work “3,” and O’Rourke, recipient of the 2022 award for her work “yellow mellow,” took me from wave crest to the in-between moments before the gold medal is won.[5] Masukawa’s “Standing on a Rising Wave,” much like the Bodytorque program as a whole, “foregrounds the importance of uplifting each other”as Belle Urwin and Alain Juelg, the lower halves of their bodies coloured differing soft blues, bobbed in harmonic frequency to music composed by Alisdair Macindoe.[6] At first, I read the waves as pertaining to the ocean, but, in retrospect, perhaps the waves were sound waves created at specific frequencies of vibration? As Amy Ronnfeldt, Yara Xu, Harrison Bradley, and Drew Hedditch joined the physics tutorial, their delicious interference made irregular reflections across the surface, as the colour palette grew to include coral reds and lilac greys. From the elegant, elongated colour lines of Masukawa to the arched back, fist pumps of O’Rourke, the track unfurled upon the diagonal. In O’Rourke’s “Tug,” Sara Andrlon, Lilla Harvey, Katherine Sonnekus, and Isabella Smith, head-to-toe in white, examined “the push pull” familiarity of opposing forces in absolute unison, and “gender inequality present in sports.” The lights blinked, the scene changed, in triumphant celebration of the in-between moments, before a slow-motion race proved a poignant finale come all too soon. The race sadly over before I realised. Or as Elmes earlier quipped, “Second place is coming up fast.”

On the record, returning to the Bodytorque choreographic line-up, corps de ballet’s Garrett’s “I’m so glad you made me,” on the heels of his earlier work, “Kids These Days” (2022); principal artist Jill Ogai’s “Scratched Up,” on the heels of her “in time” (2022); and corps de ballet’s Serena Graham’s “Pangea Pax,” on the heels of “Clarifying Carbon” (2023), this time delved into intimacy in the realm of AI, spun me round like vinyl, right round, and with Ludwig van Beethoven’s ear, and the power of—‘da-da-da-dum’—Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67, made a bid for world peace. No small feat.

“Champing at the bit” by Adam Elmes. Photograph by Brodie James

Elijah Trevitt made themselves a chimera worthy of artist Patricia Piccinini, a suggestive, genetically engineered organism, perhaps so glad to have been conjured by Mio Bayly, but, of course, it could easily be the other way round. As Bayly surveyed her AI creation in Trevitt, in “I’m so glad you made me,” I initially read that it was Trevitt who was glad to have been made into being, but as Trevitt left the digital realm and entered her world, it could be Bayly who was glad of a balm to her loneliness. With the tableaux of Trevitt as the speculative future that returned Bayly’s gaze, the blurring of roles, of who comforts who, as Garrett posed. “Who is really in control?”[8]

From silicon chimeras to the beautiful pops and clicks of a record during playback, “Scratched Up” planted Lucien Xu, Thomas Gannon, and Aya Watanabe on the A-side, joined by composer Peter Wilson, on stage, piano spinning, instrument upon vinyl loop, in costumes by Grace Carroll. The B-side flip brought the distortion of the material, as movements warped and echoed a scratch, before the familiar record crackle returned and a place could be found in the groove. Corey Gavan, Jeremy Hargreaves, Charlton Tough, Victor Estévez, Henry Berlin, Alexandra Walton, and Lilly Maskery, as seven dancers for seven continents, five oceans between them, rounded things to their close in Graham’s illuminated “Pangea Pax.” The cyclical certainty of a record in “Scratched Up” became an uncertainty of Earth’s landmasses, and the elusive nature of peace on Earth, a world record never to be attained.

As all seven dancers stood together in two rows, their seven heads joined in early geologic time (to perhaps form a Pangea, a supercontinent), it sure would be remarkable. Over four sold-out performances, whether holding a baton of light between themselves, drawing lines like a drawbridge or reminiscent of gilt frames, perhaps it is, if the “world [were] turned upside down.”[9]

Gracia Haby

Using an armoury of play and poetry as a lure, Gracia Haby is an artist besotted with paper. Her limited edition artists’ books, and other works hard to pin down, are often made collaboratively with fellow artist, Louise Jennison. Their work is in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia and state libraries throughout Australia to the Tate (UK). Gracia Haby is known to collage with words as well as paper.

footnotes

Either before or after each of the six performances, each choreographer joined Lake on stage for a brief, heartfelt Q&A, that, together with the intimacy of the 150-seat space, leaned in to Artistic Director David Hallberg’s earlier welcoming address to friends and family. Fresh from “Circle Electric,” many sighted the experience of working with Lake as an inspiration, in addition to her mentorship.
Stephanie Lake, The Australian Ballet “Bodytorque: New World Record” Melbourne foldout program, 2024.
The record originally set in 2019 by 306 dancers was beaten in April of this year by 353 dancers assembled in New York City’s Plaza Hotel.
Adam Elmes, “Champing at the bit” synopsis, The Australian Ballet “Bodytorque: New World Record”, 2024.
“yellow mellow” by Erin O’Rourke, The Australian Ballet YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9E9KkzoSlQ, accessed November 1, 2024.
Yuiko Masukawa, “Standing on a Rising Wave” synopsis, The Australian Ballet “Bodytorque: New World Record,” 2024.
Erin O’Rourke, “TUG” synopsis, The Australian Ballet “Bodytorque: New World Record,” 2024.
Benjamin Garrett, “I’m so glad you made me” synopsis, The Australian Ballet “Bodytorque: New World Record,” 2024.
Jill Ogai, “Scratched Up” synopsis, The Australian Ballet “Bodytorque: New World Record,” 2024.

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