Saturday 12 October 2024

CONDUIT BODIES - Dance Review

WHAT: Conduit Bodies
WHEN: 9-13 October 
WHERE: Arts House (Main Hall)
CREATED AND PERFORMED BY: Melinda Smith & Alon Ilsar
SET BY: Jessamine Moffett
COSTUMES BY: Anna Cordingly
INTERACTIVE MEDIA ART BY: Sam Trolland
LIGHTING BY: Bronwyn Pringle

Melinda Smith - photo by Nicole Tsourlenes

One of the things I truly love about contemporary Australian dance is how it focuses on the exploration of how the body moves and works and struggles and fails and succeeds. Apart from making it endlessly intriguing to watch because of the unpredictability, it also opens the artform up to being a place for every body which means it is allowed to be a very real exemplar of the social model of disability. Perhaps nothing demonstrates this with more clarity than Conduit Bodies currently being presented at Arts House as part of Alter State and Melbourne Fringe Festival.

Lead artist Melinda Smith has teamed up with inventor Alon Ilsar to create a truly unique performance which opens art conception and realisation far beyond the teeny tiny bounds in which is has been confined in the able-bodied communities to date. I am calling this a dance review, but apart from the dance/movement component of the work, in Conduit Bodies Smith uses Ilsar's amazing Airsticks to perform as a duet with Ilsar (who is also a percussionist), and to create amazing live digital art.

Smith has Cerebral Palsy, so it is fair to say that portions of Conduit Bodies works within the paradigm of slow dramaturgies. Having said that, Smith's natural movement style mirrors Ilsar's percussive suite, and just as percussion can draw a long steady beat but also bring a fire storm of energy, so can Smith as she navigates an arena both in and out of her chairs.

Whilst Conduit Bodies is non-narrative, it is fair to say Smith has worked with dramaturg Zoe Boesen to create a linear arc which sweeps across the arc of struggling with the body to being at peace with the body, of struggling with existing technologies and being set free by new and future technologies, of isolation and of collaboration. And amongst all of these high concepts, the shot is scattered with humour and beauty.

Smith has been an early adopter of Ilsar's Airsticks and, watching Conduit Bodies, I admit I am dying to try this new technology. The show begins with Smith rolling up to a drum kit but if she can't even scratch her back with the mallet, obviously a traditional percussive drumbeat is not likely. She then makes her way to a typewriter. Looking at it, she feels around and finds what looks like a big paint brush and waves it around a bit. Words start appearing on the screen, cascading in meaning and repetition until we read the frustration when the wrong keys are hit. Ah yes, we've all done that but imagine how often that happens to people with less physical control? This wand is helping Smith tell her story with the words she struggles to type.

Smith leave the typewriter, and new magic happens as the words turn into images. They looked like very complex snakes being drawn on the screen. It took me a while to realise that these were embedded images which draw across the screen as Smith moved the brush (and later just her body) creating textured and dynamic moving art experiences. 

Up to that point Conduit Bodies is what you might expect, but once Smith leaves her chair and plays in a big projected 'sandpit', her body and the art becoming one in a surreal fugue things get truly exciting. I found myself thinking this art being created in front of my eyes should be preserved and sold as NFTs! 

A pause, another wheelchair rolls out and Smith dances a duet before remounting and then something special happens. Ilsar, who has been performing a muted score to Smith's adventures steps forward with his own Airstick and suddenly Smith's body is not a digital paint brush - it is a digital instrument! Together they perform duelling Airsticks - a sound and movement composition. (Airsticks can be most easily thought of as a digital iteration of a theremin perhaps...).

More happens, but the outcomes are the most exciting thing about Conduit Bodies. Across these lively artistic adventures - very picaresque in nature - Smith becomes at peace with her body and the world, which is opened up for her with creations such as wheelchairs and Airsticks. Assistive technology is a developing arena, but Conduit Bodies demonstrates just how much fulfilment and engagement they bring to people who have been historically shut out of life. Oh, and it is just fantastic performance too! 

4 Stars

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