Bonemap — The Wild Edge

From the moment you arrive at Tank 3 the experience begins. The venue, organically round, gives the feeling of flow. Indeed, you are encouraged to move around freely, view or interact with the various installations. My favourite: a large block of dense ice suspended from the rafters. A mini ice age complete with pebbles and smooth stones creating a layer of land, lit with blue light. Delighting visually and sensually.

Other installations included a shrubbery of tutus. These were lit from inside during a frenetic dance performed by Rebecca Youdell. Manic and tortured, the performer cavorted agonisingly whilst a spoken word sound scape surrounded your ears.

A permanent fixture at the Tanks, a large pipe, was used to artistic advantage. At the downward opening of the pipe, a pool of light focussed on the floor creating a blue circle. Fish skeletons placed in the light conjured images of the human effluent and sewerage resulting in the death of sea creatures. Of course, this reviewer is imposing her interpretations, but as the experience was in no way explanatory I felt quite at liberty to do so.

Chairs and tables with candles were scattered around a central and slightly elevated stage. The informalness and looseness of the seating seems to be saying ‘sit if you like’. Or not. ‘Watch if you like’. Or not.

Sound was a strong and constant element. I found the musicians the best lit thing in the space, drawing my attention again and again.

The low light was at times a problem for me. People lurked and movement was restricted to careful skulking, which added to the dark and sombre tone.

There is no doubt in this reviewer’s mind that the evening was a ‘total’ experience, with many strong visual moments. I love this new hybrid art, but like learning any new language, teething problems for the general public is inevitable.

The team of Rebecca Youdell, Russell Milledge, Michael Whiticker, Paul Lawrence and Glen O"Malley was very strong.

The multimedia projections were a favourite of mine, surpassed only by the opening of part of the Tank wall with a scrim curtain gently wafting in the breeze. Repeated images, motifs and moments were projected on one half whilst Russell Milledge performed on the green bank directly outside. This gave a surprisingly beautiful juxtaposition.

The palm-sized program was appealing in its contemporary presentation and contained some of Glen O"Malley’s images that were integral to the work. Although I found the work inaccessible at times, I feel the artists were aware and made no excuses for it. They simply exposed themselves and their work from ‘Drizabones’ and tutus and underwear. I personally would have enjoyed some lighter moments — both literally and metaphysically — but the atmosphere these artists created was exquisite.

If you wish to know more, understand more, visit www.bonemap.com I did. It is extremely enlightening with regards to the artist’s intentions. Exclusivity is not their intent, indeed I found the site to be eclectic and informing.

The Wild Edge review by Narelle Reece

If you thought Cairns was lacking in exciting, innovative theatre, you only needed to witness The Wild Edge presented by Bonemap at the Tanks Arts Centre last weekend to be reassured that this is not the case.

Using dance, music, photography and video images, Rebecca Youdell, Russell Milledge, Glen O"Malley, Paul Lawrence and Michael Whiticker gave us performances of international standard.

These five artists mesmerised the audience with sound and images that evoked both arid and urban Australia — from the bleached-bone starkness of the desert to the loud, confused frenzy of the urban scene.

There was nothing mainstream about The Wild Edge.

Dance was not dance as we know it, music came from obscure sources, pipes dangled from the ceiling, large rocks were suspended by wires and a huge block of ice containing pebbles swung dripping into aluminium bowls.

Both the music and dance were unsurpassed.

This performance might not appeal to the average punter but gives the discerning spectator a great deal of pleasure.

It is to be hoped the State and federal arts funding bodies will see fit to fund more ventures of this calibre.

The first choice was where to sit. Boneamp’s creative team - Choreographic Fellow Rebecca Youdell, performer and multimedia artist Russell Milledge, photographer Glen O’Malley, and composers and musician Paul Lawrence and Michael Whiticker — transformed the Centre’s performance space. The usual seating was hidden behind a black gauze, and a curtain of linked x-rays divided a performance area into two, with chairs placed either side. Wherever you chose to sit, you knew you’d be missing out on something. This was just the first if many choices we had to make as we were bombarded with images and sounds. Did you watch the flickering images projected onto the gauze? Ot the musicians bowing rocks suspended from the ceiling? Or two feet, creeping over the flats above your head?

These choices, I think, affected the way we interpreted the images Bonemap offered, making the experience unique for each of us. There was a sense in which we were being asked to look through the layers (through the curtain of x-rays, ghostly fingerprints of other lives, through the gauze at Milledge trembling and sliding) to discover the core beneath. This was a risky move, risky in that that there was always the chance that the audience might not ‘get’ the creators’ message or that the message we ‘got’ would be different for each of us. Having had an opportunity to talk to Youdell and Milledge about the work during its development, I suspect that they would have been very happy for each of us to walk away with our own understanding of the work.

For me, the piece was about relationship with the earth. From the opening moments, when Youdell, on one side of the x-rays, slid inch-by-inch across the surface of the space like a prehistoric creature climbing out of the mud, to the magical moment when she shed her drizabone like a snake shedding its skin, I was reading a story that placed humankind on equal footing with the ‘bare bones’ of the planet. Bonemap made me think about man’s inability to conquer the environment and, perhaps, our stupidity in trying to do so.

But was this ‘dance’? That’s a question I am not qualified to answer and maybe the answer doesn’t matter. But for what it’s worth, Bonemap to me was less ‘dance’, than it was ‘performance art’. It seemed to me to be about bringing a variety of media to bear on a common idea (although in the end that idea may be difficult to discover the layers of meaning it has gathered about it), testing and stretching the relationship between media. So the foyer was turned into an art gallery, home to O’Malley’s evocative still photography — often capturing Milledge and Youdell in mid-movement (another example of the stillness that permeated the piece) — Milledge’s images, Lawrence and Whiticker’s vocalised, acoustic and electronic soundscape. Together, these elements combined with the movement to trace Bonemap’s journey through time and space.

Kathryn Favelle is a freelance writer and a Contributing Editor (Literature) for Muse.

www.muse-arts.com.au

Bonemap, Choreographic Centre, 2 March 2000

This was a hideous work excellently presented, rather like a well-wrapped gift, the contents of which turned to be some bloodied flesh.

Let’s take the wrapping first. A great deal of talent and experience went into structuring this multimedia theatrical presentation, of which dance was merely the rallying point. The sound by Paul Lawrence and Michael Whiticker comprised pre-recorded material mixed with onstage sounds, coaxed mostly from everyday objects such as cellophane, drinking cans, rocks suspended on wires and the odd keyboard and guitar. Three-dimensional sound reinforcement enabled a kind of choreographed movement in sound. Video collage projected dimly on to a clack gauze gave tantalising glimpses of imagery in colour, echoed more clearly in black and white photographs in the foyer.

The performance space was divided by a curtain of medical x-ray films linked chain like and suspended from the ceiling. Member’s of the audience were seated on either sides of the curtain, facing one another. A third performance area was designated by the black gauze, behind which a movement scene was visible when lit.

Two dancers, choreographer Rebecca Youdell and Russell Milledge, shared the performance areas, separately and together. Starting on the floor, they moved almost imperceptibly, building to moments of frenzied movement before returning to minimal movement. The dynamics and pace of the work were well modulated and the integration of the visual art, sound and movement was well balanced.

The artistic content, however, was far more difficult to interpret. The dance was characterised predominantly by images of torment, suffering and perhaps madness. The analogy between x-rays and the title is obvious, but what might they represent metaphorically? I stayed for a brief public forum between the artists and the audience in the hope of understanding more.

Though I was relieved to be assured they were not outwardly tormented, my curiosity remained unsatisfied. Rather like writers who claim they write in order to find out what it is they have to say, I suspect these artists did something similar in their respective media. What emerged seemed to be deeply feaarful, reflective perhaps of the unknown nature of the future, and the rapid evolution of technology. Could it be Bonemap is all we have to anchor us, the thing least likely to change before our eyes?

If so, this work was essentially a cathartic experience for the artists involved and, in its subconsciousness revealed a universal fear of the unknown — as well as "fearing the worst".

This was a work that challenged interpretation, and there could have been as many different responses as there were members of the audience.

by Kathryn Favelle

The Canberra Times February 24, 2000

From an empty shell of a World War II tank, dancers create a place for cultural inscription.

The Performance Space at the Choreographic Centre is dimly lit when Mark Gordon, the Centre's director, gives me my first glimpse of Bonemap. A large curtain of X-rays hangs from ceiling to floor, ghostly echoes of the human form. Later, I watch a video where the architecture of the body is juxtaposed with the natural and urban environments. The bodies appear and disappear within the frame, unlike the man-made or altered landscapes in which they move.

Bonemap is an exploration in collaborative artmaking. Presented by the Choreographic Centre's first Choreographic Fellow for 2000, Rebecca Youdell and her colleagues Russell Milledge, Glen O'Malley, Michael Whiticker and Paul Lawrence, Bonemap is a work that combines film, movement, photography, and music. Different elements are being combined to create a video, audio CD, photographic and object based exhibition, as well as a dance performance.

Although next week's presentation will be held within the confines of the Performance Space, one of the key elements of Bonemap is to create a work that is flexible enough to be performed in different sites - like the empty shell of a World War II tanker where Bonemap will be performed during Australian National Dance Week in May.

"The different components give us flexibility in the structure of the piece," Youdell says. 'We can perform the piece indoors or outdoors, responding to the environment."

The environment, in fact, plays a central role in Bonemap. 'We've photographed and filmed in a lot of messed up places that have been abandoned and, through our work, tried to regenerate them as sites for cultural inscription, "Russell Milledge says. "Dance is a low impact art form so we can still give a place cultural relevance without having a big impact on the environment."

Many of those places such as abandoned marble quarries and old forts, have influenced Youdell and Milledge's image-based approach to movement. But they are also a strong visual presence in Glen O'malley's photographs and Paul Lawrence's composition.

After next week's showings, the Bonemap team will refine the piece in preparation for performances at the Tanks Arts Centre in Cairns. Later this year, they will tour Japan (you can help their fund-raising by buying rich North Queensland coffee at the showings) as well as a tour to Queensland.

Bonemap is at the Choreographic Centre Performance Space from March 2-4 at 8pm. Tickets at the door. For more details visit the Bonemap website, www.bonemap.com or phone 62473103.