The ground shifts and slides with almost seismic energy beneath dancers’ feet in Christchurch choreographer Fleur de Thier’s latest work.
On an angle: Tilt
These days, there will be occasions when Christchurch dancers struggle for equilibrium, striving to be calm and composed while the earth pitches and shakes. But never more so than in new contemporary dance work Tilt.
Christchurch choreographer Fleur de Thier has created an installation – a moving floor within a moveable set, made up of sheets of heavy wooden fibreboard placed over car tyres – that shifts and slides with almost seismic energy.
Tilt is a commission by the Christchurch Arts Festival, one of two works by Christchurch choreographers in the festival that address the impact of the city’s earthquakes.
The dancers will have to carry the cumbersome set around the theatre space as well as dance on it. “It can be stood up, tilted, made into a ramp or set straight up and down – or suddenly become very mobile and turn to a 32° angle,” says de Thier. “The whole time dancers have to negotiate a surface that is always moving, so it becomes normal. When it moves, they try to stay calm, centred and work with it.”
De Thier says Tilt is not only a response to the earthquakes but part of her series examining external forces and how they affect human behaviour. She takes pains to create environmental landscapes, either with a set or film.
“I don’t ever just put dancers on stage in a big work. I really like the idea of dance being a kinetic sculpture as well – so it is not just about bodies; it is about the environment that they are in.”
For her 2009 work, Winded, she created an installation of giant fans to form a wind tunnel producing a huge vortex of air that sucked and whirled the dancers. “There were tubes with lights and fans in them. When the fans were on full bore, you couldn’t stand up – it was a very windy experience for the dancers and the audience.”
Three of the four dancers in Tilt, Julia Milsom, Erica Viedma and Aleasha Seaward, are from Christchurch; Liana Yew is from Auckland. “Liana was in Winded, so she is familiar with my material, but also I liked the idea of someone who hadn’t experienced the earthquakes being involved in the process. I didn’t want to get too bogged down, to make it a therapy session. It’s not for us to indulge in terrible stories. Plus having an objective outside eye is interesting.”
De Thier would like the work to travel and be accessible to a wider audience. “I want people to say, ‘Oh yeah, that relates to an earthquake but it doesn’t represent the earthquake.’”
Without doubt, de Thier is a mainstay of Christchurch’s contemporary dance scene. After travelling to Auckland to study at Unitec’s dance programme, she returned and established her first company, Scrambled Legs, in 1998. Since then, she has produced a number of explorative solo and collaborative choreographic projects. To her delight and surprise, such talented Christchurch dancers as Milsom, Viedma and Seaward have returned after their own training to build regular seasons of innovative work. She says it is good fortune none of them have terrible personal stories from the earthquakes and all are very busy with dance.
De Thier always aims to move her audience, but although Tilt is emotive and will evoke memories, she does not want it to be disturbing. “People are getting on with it, but there are those who are emotionally vulnerable, especially with the announcement recently of the Red Zone. Many people say ‘Oh, whatever’ to the aftershocks, but there are others who are still rattled by them.
“What I want to say is that no matter how difficult it has been, there is a journey onwards, even if it might take time. I called it Tilt because I like that idea of an angle; there is a journey up. I want audiences to be uplifted and inspired. To see that despite these disasters there are still creative things going on and people with hope.”
TILT, Fleur de Thier and company, Fletcher Building Dome, August 19-21, as part of the Christchurch Arts Festival, until October 2.