Tegan Jeffrey-Rushton's Overture announces itself as something rare in contemporary dance. It's a work that treats architecture as a collaborator rather than a container. This immersive production, co-produced with Artisma Creative Co, transforms the Eternity Playhouse into a maze of intimate revelations, asking audiences to abandon the safety of their seats and follow performers through the building's secret geography.
The journey begins innocuously in the foyer, where what appears to be a bartender and cleaner break into choreographed movement, joined by a female performer. This disruption of theatrical convention, being the moment when background becomes foreground, establishes the work's central preoccupation: what counts as performance, and when does it truly begin?
From here, the audience ascends a dimly lit winding staircase, guided by sound design from Love Supreme, until we find ourselves crowded into the female performer's dressing room. Here, with the dancers literally inches from spectators' feet, the spatial intimacy becomes almost uncomfortably acute. This isn't the comfortable voyeurism of traditional theatre; it's witness-bearing that implicates the viewer in the vulnerability being displayed.
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The work builds toward a dinner scene featuring the bartender and female performer, before culminating in its most striking sequence: the auditorium gradually fills with ensemble dancers performing as audience members, their choreographed movements expanding from individual gestures into a vast cacophony of synchronised motion. It's a remarkable sequence. The scale shift is breathtaking, from the claustrophobic intimacy of the dressing room to this grand-scale orchestration of bodies.
Holly Finch, Yukino McHugh, Robert McLean, and Neale Whittaker lead a cast that demonstrates exceptional spatial awareness and stamina. The adaptation required to perform in such varied environments, from cramped backstage areas to the expansive stage, while maintaining choreographic precision is considerable, and the ensemble meets these demands with apparent effortlessness.
Jeffrey-Rushton's choreographic vision, developed in collaboration with the cast, poses philosophical questions through this spatial practice. If life itself is "perpetual performance, blurring the lines of identity and reality," then perhaps the moments we designate as "backstage" deserve equal attention to those we frame as "the show." The work's title becomes increasingly apt, an overture that positions itself simultaneously as beginning and ending, first note and last.
The Eternity Playhouse's architecture proves ideal for this investigation. The Eternity's modest scale intensifies the intimacy. The building's various levels, hidden rooms, and winding passages become characters in their own right.
Overture refuses spectacle for spectacle's sake. Yes, the final auditorium sequence is visually stunning, but the work earns this grandeur through the accumulation of smaller, more vulnerable moments: the dancer alone with a broom, the cramped quarters of preparation, the private rituals before public presentation.
The production values are well considered, with lighting design guiding the audience's attention and Love Supreme's composition providing emotional texture without overwhelming the movement. The period-type costuming grounds the work in a specific theatrical history while allowing its philosophical concerns to resonate beyond any single era.
Overture challenges the conventional passive nature of the audience in the theatre, delivering genuinely original choreographic thinking. It's a work that lingers not just in memory but in muscles. Having moved through these spaces, we carry the experience in our bodies as much as in our minds.
More info: https://www.form.org.au/overture/
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