By Jennifer Beasley.
The culmination of 20 years of PIECES, as produced by the LGI at the University of Melbourne, is a triptych creative tour du force.
Lucy Guerin Inc (LCI) and the University of Melbourne Arts and Culture (UMAC) present a 75-minute showcase of three very difference contemporary dances at the newly built Union Theatre.
It was my pleasure to review this showing as in the 20 years of the LCI producing the PIECES showcase, over 80 works have been created. As a substantial opportunity for local choreographers, this has given a leg up for them to create larger works and become, for many of them, the most daring and celebrated choreographic voices in Australia.
Although I am not a formally trained dancer and choreographer, my daughter was, and so I was very excited to watch the most cutting-edge choreography in Australia.
The first piece to open is Hush. Created by Siobhan McKenna, who has a solid association with The Sydney Dance Company, LCI, Australian Dance Theatre and the ImplusTaz (Vienna), McKenna has also received a fellowship from both Chole Munro and the LCI, as well as participating in 2024 in the ATLAS scholarship program at ImpulsTanz (Vienna). In other words, McKenna is primed for bigger and better things.
Hush draws on the minuscule of sound that leaks out of us organically. A snigger, a laugh, a shush, a cough. All these organic noises are woven and interlace the esoteric music as the four dancers, Zoe Brown-Holten, Rachel Coulson, Siobhan McKenna and Georgia Rudd, are perfectly in tune with each other, without one misstep. With composition and sound design by Helen Svoboda and Tilman Robinson, and muted tonal costumes that allows the dancers free movement by Geoffrey Watson, this performance breathes in and out, resting at times when it needs to, energetic to the point of mania at others. The costumes and soft lighting by Rachel Lee give it an almost Star Wars feel, like I was viewing a tribal dance on another planet, where the language is told in movement and physiologically produced sound. I found myself really listening and watching, forcing myself to envelope the beauty of stillness as the breath calms the dancers. They yawn, they stretch and then – they sleep. Marvellous.
Jumping to the third performance (I’ll explain why later), is Post Hoc, by Choreographer Jo Lloyd. Lloyd has presented and performed works everywhere, it seems. The New Zealand Dance Company, Nibroll Japan and the Bundanon Museum of Art to name a few. She has received several Green Room nominations and awards, including three for the marvellous Overture in 2018 and 2019. Her recent works output is staggering. Agitto for Dancehouse (2025) and FM Air for the Sydney Dance Company are just a small example from this prodigious artist’s works.
Post Hoc, meaning ‘after this’ or ‘after the event’ can be interpreted in many ways, however, I like my companion’s view that the two male dancers, Flynn Dakis and Jesper Harrison (both more than talented), were positive and negative particles. In a set that felt post-apocalyptic in its simplicity, with the feel of a nuclear powerplant and the towering force of a 7-metre blue crane, an image reinforced with the orange/grey clothing by Andrew Treloar, these two dancers perform reckless dance moves, briefly connecting, before splintering off. A short period of mirrored movements (even their clothes mirrored each other), chaos, emptiness where they leave the stage, and disharmony, but then-a spark- igniting more and more connections of the psyche. Unable to form a lasting bond, they seem to communicate, separate, communicate again. Until finally they form an awkward union that sticks, despite the forces trying to tear them apart. So creative. Again, there are moments that render you speechless. The calm moments require the audience to fill in the spaces, as if the ion particles of the dancers have bounced out and interacted with our own psyche. A gripping soundtrack by Duane Morrison beats down into the body in an industrial pound as the harsh lighting by Rachel Lee pulls the dancers into a sharp focus.
Now, to the second piece. Lip by Choreographer Jenni Large.
I must save the best until last.
There is nothing I like more than to see a performance that burns through my retina and sets my brain on fire. I live for it. That’s why I’m a reviewer. I wait and I watch and then, when I see the sublime, I know that the Gods of Muses have come down and touched us all. Hyperbole? Absolutely not.
Lip is the performance that you must see to believe. More a Performative Theatrical Piece than a dance, this is part Hellfire Club, part revenge female eroticism and part esoteric transformations of hybrid and hyper-sexualised beings.
The opening – astounding.
A flash of strobe light, a jarring screech of noise. A soulful croon – the vocal of erotically clad Anna Whitaker, a sexual call to a demon or the Other. Jenni Large, a red super-heeled masked nightmare rolls and contorts onto the stage. Ghastly yet thrilling, the two play upon each other, master and slave, slave and master as a soundtrack of crying overlays the techno thrumming soundtrack, also by Anna Whitaker. Un-believ-able.
Killer costumes by Jarred Dewey are totally next level. If you have a dream (or a nightmare) of a powerful female dominatrix, who vibrates with sexual power, then here they are manifested in all their dangerous glory. The almost Japanese inspired costume of Whitaker is a fabulous foil as the two play an intimate game. Again, great lighting from Rachel Lee, which spotlights perfectly the two dancers, adding dramatic fade outs as required.
Brilliant choreography and the physicality of Large is impressive. As are the facial expressions of Whitaker – cold, calculating, yet primed for revenge.
The outtake of this piece? The body is a weapon.
Large has an innate knowledge of the theatrics. An independent dancer, teacher, choreographer and director, Large’s work has been presented at every known festival in Australia. A recipient of a Chole Munro Fellowship, and winner of the People’s Choice Award and Green Room nomination for Wet Hard, Large will also be the Balnaves Artist In Residency at the Sydney Dance Company next year, and will premiere their new work, Faraway.
If you can go and see Pieces. The future is ahead and these chorographers, dancer and associated team members are paving the way.
Pieces plays at the Union Theatre at UMAC, at 7:00 pm until 28th November 2025
