![]() ![]() What does it mean to be Chinese? The “twenty-six, friendless, unmarried” Lily (Stephanie Jack) struggles to know, but the ghost of her recently deceased Poh Poh (Gabrielle Chan, who delivers a star turn as Lily’s ethereal, imposing grandma) has an idea: Lily has to enter Chinese community beauty pageant Miss Peony (that Poh Poh pioneered) and win it.īrown is excellent as the world-weary, morally ambiguous Doc – his gentle physicality belying the thorniness of his decisions. THEATRE Miss Peony ★★★½ Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne, Until August 20 It has energy, focus, and you should see it because it stimulates the nervous system like no other sort of contemporary dance. The simplicity of the presentation in this new piece suggests a renewed enthusiasm for the job of organising bodies in space. In large-scale works like Nyx (2015), Token Armies (2019) and Yung Lung (2022), Hamilton has experimented with unusual venues, lavish designs and elaborate multimedia and non-dance elements – all with mixed results. Bosco Shaw has created the lighting design and Paula Levis the costumes. ![]() The fine ensemble includes Mason Kelly, Melissa Pham, David Prakash, Harrison Ritchie-Jones, Aimee Schollum, Michaela Tancheff, Nikki Tarling and Jayden Wall. And always there is the beat – its unperturbed pace – hurrying the dancing machines into the darkness. The performers resemble puppets, robots and replicant breakers, connecting with collective nightmares about dancing life-like dolls. The fascination lies not only with the intricacy and technical refinement of the choreography, but also the strangely deadpan handling of the breakdance material.įour low platforms on castors are used to create evocative images: the spinning arm of a clock, for example, or two black ships on a white sea voyaging toward oblivion, or a funeral service in a George Miller-style dystopia. The pace is unvaried, but the show is far from monotonous. The sound design, created by Alisdair Macindoe, is a sparse assortment of clicks and ticks and weird pops, which nonetheless keeps the tempo regular, like a metronome, locking the ensemble into a relentless trudging progress. Street dance-influenced phrases are deftly co-ordinated as the pairs move in an out of intricate unison formations. It begins with eight dancers in black, performing in two groups of two pairs. ![]() The title references four-four time, as well as the organisation of the ensemble. ![]()
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