Fresh

Overview

Fresh is an intimate and contemporary performance of great worth. The experience was an invitation into five different worlds, all of which blend together with coherency. With minimal set, attention is drawn to the tales and talents of contemporary dance.

Bird song lights up the small stage for Hybrid, the first performance. Hybrid tells of the courtship, the friction in the forest between beast and bird. A unique aerial circus routine confined to the brutal realities of impossible love. Costumes of red, blue and green velvet cover the two dancers from beak to back, enriching the picture and painting the otherwise black scene.

The sombre scene overlaps into Licht. A dangling soft light becomes the focus and we all become like moths transfixed by a single bulb. Two female dancers in sync, hypnotized by the light, spellbound by its energy, seemingly completely unaware of any audience.

Throat follows, three apparently identical forms are intent on exploring truth and the implications when that idea of truth begins to unravel and the cracks begin to show. Company Of Another takes on a similar stance following a couple searching for what felt like loneliness, but may have been mistaken for emptiness.

The show closes with a performance that is tantalising. Two male and one female dancer paint the stage in flour, surrounding the boundaries of space and later shattering this perception. Using their bodies the dancers scatter the white paint and are convicted to taunt one another, arguing, fighting, telling a tale of cannibalism and pacific folklore. Body percussion, stamina and the physical strength of contemporary dance are credited. The dance ends with the carefully crafted tension dropping dead like a fly and a position of normality resumed, as if no catastrophe had ever taken place, let alone been revisited.

Fresh is both a fast paced tale of stories and sorrows, without the disappointment and depth of tragedy. The commitment to technique is appreciated. Colliding with both structure and chaos, Fresh is a collective narrative of desires both good and bad.