The Line is a three-hander from Co3 choreographed by artistic director Raewyn Hill in association with Mark Howett of Ochre Dance and The Farm. Although Hill’s elegant lines and slightly jagged swirls of the limbs are clearly present (especially in the multiple short solos), it is Howett’s approach to structure and physical conflict that distinguishes the overall performance.

Ian Wilkes, Katherine Gurr and Andrew Searle. Photograph © Daniel Carson

The piece takes its title from the infamous colour bar enforced in several West Australian settlements, which made it illegal for Indigenes and indeed most people of colour to be within city limits after dark. This topic has been dealt with choreographically by Broome’s Marrugeku (Burning Daylight), in film (The Coolbaroo Club) and theatre (Yirra Yaakin’s Waltzing the Wilarra). Co3’s The Line is perhaps the most abstract of these treatments.

Hill and Howett take their inspiration from accounts of a rare locale in Perth where these rules where routinely flaunted, namely the working class carnival grounds variously known as “Ugly Town” (after the charitable men’s association which administered it) or “White City” (after its main building, which was intended to evoke another of the same name...