★★★★½ Extraordinary world premiere shifts the boundaries of Surrealism game.

Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival
March 07, 2016

Four string players, two visual artists, twelve composers and a Lovecraftian entity walk into a collaboration. Historically the game of Surrealist poets and artists, for this version of Exquisite Corpse, Zephyr Quartet et al add music, composition and live performance to an ethereal set replete with swirling smoke and a tentacled Cthulhu-like creature.

Art created by Luku Kukuku and Jo Kerlogue is projected upstage as shades of Miro give way to amoeba, stars, skulls and monsters in minute detail. The raw and exposed vibratoless melody and rhythmic pizzicato marks the beginning of our wafting journey of discovery; or rather, our drift is the discovery.

The surrealist aspects of Exquisite Corpse are at work from the start; the visuals thick with symbolism, mythology and fantastic, nonsensical creations. The music, at times dissonant, expands into conversations where juxtaposing themes compete against each other, underpinned by graphic, mechanical and at times grotesques images. We expect it to grate, but somehow, each element amalgamates intriguingly.

Visually, there are times when the geometrical planes move, resulting in a dynamic shift in perception. Here, it’s perhaps slightly more challenging than the...