In April David and Jacob will be performing as part of the Making Contact season at Dancehouse.
From the Dancehouse website:
An international contact improvisation collaboration, featuring Andrew de Lotbinière Harwood (Canada), Judit Keri (Hungary), David Corbet (VIC) and Jacob Lehrer (VIC), with live sound by Rae Howell (Sunwrae Ensemble) and Tamil Rogeon.
Dates: April 26-30, 2006
Tickets: Member $15, non-member $20
Venue: Dancehouse, 150 Princes St, North Carlton VIC
Bookings: 03 9347 2860 or info@dancehouse.com.au
There is now some footage on the Media pages from this performance season. We were also given a review in InPress magazine by Stephanie Glickman.
REVIEW
Making Contact
Where and when: Dancehouse, 26-30 April
Reviewer: Stephanie Glickman
This collaborative dance performance event was the culmination of a residency of four leading contact improvisation dancers. Two of these, David Corbet and Jacob Lehrer live and work in Melbourne, while the others, Andrew Harwood and Judit Keri hail from Canada and Hungary, respectively. Contact improvisation is a dance technique that builds movement sequences by using multiple bodies to give and take weight, release into and out of the floor and create infinite kineasthetic interactions. Music, lighting and text can play important roles in building material.
The highly experienced quartet, joined by Alies Sluiter, an improvising violinist, and Rae Howell, a piano and vibraphone player, built a well-developed exploration on Sunday night. Movable wooden panels created multiple ways to divide and arrange the space, building some of the most interesting and dynamic moments in the performance. Initially placed in a straight line up the back of the space, they eventually became everything from hiding places to partitions between duets and opening and closing doors.
Being improvisation, each performance has a very different feel. In this one, the dancers played off distinct personalities. Harwood emerged as the mentor, often telling the Australian boys to be careful with their rambunctious maneuvers. Keri spoke directly to the audience, telling us what Harwood was aiming for artistically while Corbet and Lehrers contributions ran the gamut of tender, confused, funny and beautiful movement. While a sense of individuality of dancers emerged, the crucial essence of working as an ensemble was never lost. The musicians were sensitive to the actions and built in sounds that both responded to the physicalizations around them, but also provided much aural scope for the quartet to work with. At points, Keri joined Sluiter and Howell, adding her own verbal contributions.
Often used as an experiential practice or to generate choreography, contact improvisation is a difficult movement form to make into engaging extended performance in its own rite. These artists managed to do that, testament to both their on-going dedication to the form and the three weeks resourced by Dancehouse to allow such in-depth analysis.