From concentric circles to retrogressive ripples;
From diminishing vortexes to an unspoiled epicenter;
Is humanity meant to be a solitary agent?
What happens when an individual encounters with another being?
What if they belong to two distinct realms?
Australian choreographer Gideon Obarzanek, along with his talented team of Chunky Move, attempts to address the questions in his award winning dance performance Mortal Engine, a development from the original solo GLOW. This spectacular multi-disciplinary work, experimental in nature, efficaciously fuses mortality with technology through a mixed cavern of movement, light, video, sound and laser.
If contemporary dance is an artistic expression of self and imagination through our most honest bodies and emotions in its consecrated odyssey seeking newness, then Mortal Engineholds promise of dethroning our conventional perception towards art while crusading for the uncharted terrain as human physique squirms and coalesces into untamed geometry of light and sound. The use of computing technology is not a sheer medium to achieve extraordinary novelty; but the plethora of the variations between the two constituents, humanity and machinery, has unrelentingly turned into an absorbing, stimulating, mind-bending art form.
To Obarzanek, the limitation and fickleness of mortality is purely an illusion. Through the meticulous yet spontaneous treatment of movement and sound responsive projections, a constantly changing and iridescent world realises the extension of human body, the expansion and contraction of kinetic energy, and the incessantly evolving soul – making possible the impossible. The tilted platform only further proves the sinewy frames and protean suppleness of the dancers.
Right from the beginning, Obarzanek invites us to travel to his hybrid world by using the cinematographic motif of never-ending circle as a powerful vehicle to embrace the juxtaposition of reality and art, dots and lines, mortal and engine, humanity and technology, light and shadow, good and evil, self and other, wholeness and alienation, yin and yang or “cosmological perfection and grotesque evolutionary accidents of existence” in the choreographer's own terms. From concentric circles to vortexes to a navel-like focal point, the everlasting circles epitomise life itself.
This video as a threshold to the alternative world is immediately followed by the “happenstance” of two parallel blue lines. Almost out of the blue, the quiet conception of a female dancer who is encircled in white luminosity amidst the ominous darkness is impressively seen. As she moves, her body leaves a trail of white glow that diligently outlines her silhouette on the raised stage. The purity and perfection of this unformed being is shortly tainted by a blackened creature with spidery limbs and she is soon enveloped by her own shadow, the sinister “other” of her true self. As darkness devours the heroine, the anxiety that breeds on the stage fosters the shrinking, suffocating breath of the audience. The entire theatre is sealed with angst, obscurity and trepidation.
Alluding to the notion of shadow, there is another mesmerising duet sequence that presents two dancers – woman and man, self and other, ego and alter ego – with the shadow struggling to peel off from his possessor. After the skirmish, the two entities ultimately embrace each other, reminding some of us the heroes of Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. This scene is thought-provoking as it lures us to delve into some philosophical questions. Can we survive without our other self? Can we still call it whole and complete when we only embrace our light side? Is perfection still perfect when we lose our dark side?
If life is a stimulated reality, how are we going to escape from this matrix? The scene with a dancer crawling himself in the sea of labyrinthine pattern reminds us the humanity's fatal nature as lost souls. As a mortal, we are perhaps destined to be devastated and consumed by the infectious fleas or cataclysm as represented by the tremendous pool of jumpy black dots in the performance. Nonetheless, this is our ordeal – being always on the brink of perfecting ourselves with the beauty of hope, determination and free will.
Towards the end of the dance piece, the shower of glaring acid green laser and strobe light amidst the smoky tunnel of space calls into mind the altar of the mysterious pryamid; while the touch of the fingers between the two dancers carries our imagination to the touching encounter of Elliott and E.T. The penetration of the shocking green luminosity and the scores, hisses and beeps created by Ben Frost and Robin Fox transform the stage into spacey soundscape and cosmic field – an almost renewed sense of Revelation. Is the “greenness” from the outer space rescuing the prevailing monochrome dystopia paraded in the previous scenes? The engulfing surrealistic fragrance in the midst of the hybrid technology conceives in our wild imagination the vision of Philip Dick's androids. In a contemporary world where the interaction between humans and machines sometimes comes in a more intimate manner, how are we going to define and perceive the construction, deconstruction and reconstruction of human-to-human relationships?
Behind the stage curtain is our unseen hero, Frieder Weiss, whose computer algorithms orchestrating this intriguing crossbreed show of astonishing virtuosity. His absolutely intelligent invention Kalypso, a complex setup of computers, infrared cameras and projectors, allows lighting and video to be directed by dancers' movements. Every warm, mortal action incites a cold, immortal reaction. The metamorphosis of such human physical frames into light, image and sound is truly arresting. The interplay between the two elements – human dancers and technology – is bizarrely harmonious and balanced. Above all, the malleability and dynamics of the dancers are ardently admired and appreciated. After all, they are the ones who direct and instigate the technological reaction. cameras and projectors, allows lighting and video to be directed by dancers' movements. Every warm, mortal action incites a cold, immortal reaction. The metamorphosis of such human physical frames into light, image and sound is truly arresting. The interplay between the two elements – human dancers and technology – is bizarrely harmonious and balanced. Above all, the malleability and dynamics of the dancers are ardently admired and appreciated. After all, they are the ones who direct and instigate the technological reaction.
With no pre-composed phrases triggered by the dancers' motions, the full integration of movement and light, sound and laser, body and technology, is an organic one indeed. The feat of the estranged separation and overlapping togetherness of the performers, as reinforced by the constant expansion and contraction of light and shadow, discloses the unbroken tension of human relationships.
Perhaps, the genre of Mortal Engine as a hybrid performance itself is the best verdict of the ambivalent human nature. This vicious cycle of connecting, disconnecting and reconnecting with our own species and environment is a curious subject for us to ponder upon. It may not be a reckless proposition to put forward that every life on earth is a mere imperfect entity in a constant stage of becoming towards perfection, and that Chunky Move's Mortal Engine brings us to that fascinating realm of never-ending land, vividly and visually.
「藝評新世代──藝評寫作導領計劃2010」由康樂及文化事務署（新視野藝術節）主辦，國際演藝評論家協會（香港分會）策劃及統籌。
本網站內一切內容之版權均屬國際演藝評論家協會（香港分會）及原作者所有，未經本會及/或原作者書面同意，不得轉載。