Queensland Conservatorium Theatre, Brisbane
March 15, 2018

Live music, original compositions and new choreographies are the key ingredients in Expressions Dance Company’s aptly named minor season: Converge. Here, experienced and emerging choreographers present a quadruple bill of short works on the company dancers, accompanied by young musicians from the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University. It is a platform for new choreographic and compositional voices to be heard, and there is good reason to pay attention to what is being said.

The first work of the evening opens with six dancers in a line making familiar gestures: tapping of fingers, tutting of tongues, heavy breathing. Exaggeration and distortion are layered in and what begun as familiar is now something quite abstract, although distinctly recognisable as human movement. This is Stephanie Lake’s Ceremony – a world of “ticking machinery, percussive rituals and beasts arising”. The dancers shift between sections characterised by highly articulated hand movements, hyperextended lines, isolation of limbs and the occasional scream or sigh. The tone of the piece constantly shifts; it is playful yet twisted, ordered then chaotic.

Expressions Dance Company’s Converge. Photo © FenLan Chuang

Lake has chosen an eclectic set of music scores to accompany...