I have been an avid follower of Restless Dance Theatre for more years than I care to remember, so it was with undisguised excitement that I went along to see the World Premiere of Artistic Director, Michelle Ryan's, Guttered, at Kingpin Norwood. Was I surprised to be attending a dance performance in a bowling alley? Not in the least. Michelle Ryan likes to keep audiences on their toes, not just her dancers.
The place was bouncing, as I walked in and registered my attendance into the COVID log, with Mums and Dads, and hordes of excited children playing the arcade games, hiring their bowling shoes, queueing for a Laser Skirmish, or simply hanging around with a bowl of hot chips.
I was given a small badge with a graphic in the shape of the letter G and instructed to go down to the most distant block of seven bowling alleys, to speak to the people behind the counter in front of the central alley. The two young women I met asked rather personal questions about my bowling experience and ability, examined my shoes, and declared me a cheerleader rather than a player. I was handed a Personal Score Card and directed to take up a position on one of the tall white stools behind the actual players who, I noted with some envy, were lounging on comfortable, soft sofas.
There was an acknowledgement of country, as we have become accustomed to expect, but this one was a little different from the rather stilted, learned by rote ritual that we are so familiar with. It ended with ".......... we acknowledge the Elders, past present and emerging, and we will walk softly, as we feel the footprints of their ancestors." I feel sure that the Kaurna People would appreciate the respect shown by one group of dancers to another.
Two dancers with torches act as ushers, selecting audience members and pulling them from their comfortable sofas, and instructing them to bowl against other members of the dance troupe.
A young dancer approached me, on my lofty cheerleader's chair, and held a small bowling bag to my head. There was a soft light coming through the fabric of the tightly zipped satchel and, as she drew it closer and closer to me, I could hear snatches of conversation emanating from it. " Just try harder ....." "...... I can do it on my own ...." "What are you laughing at!"
Dancers crouched behind the small countertop in front of the central lane, their heads rolling along it like bowling balls.
Projections above each of the seven pin setters start to rotate as Jason Sweeney's soundtrack begins to swell, dancers rolling bowling balls and retrieving them before they reach the pins, then dismissing them into the gutters as the pinsetters join the dance.
One dancer is isolated, clutching her illuminated bag. She sits down and opens it to reveal a brightly lit sphere, that she holds and stares into like a crystal ball. She puts it down and it rolls away and then turns to roll back to her up the slope of the alley. She begins to dance with it, calling it like a pet as it follows her back and forth along the smooth narrow lines of the alleys.
She returns the glowing orb to her bag and the light is extinguished and suddenly she is surrounded, her bag torn from her grasp, taunted, bullied, humiliated as the bag is passed from one antagonist to the next illuminated by the ushers' lights, her fingers brushing it as it is whisked mercilessly away again. She finally makes her escape, and her tormenters pose and flex their muscles to a rising cheer.
Two male dancers vie for the affections of a young woman, one snatching her from the caress of the other, over and over. The object of their attention treated like a prize, a trophy until the men begin to fight and she can get away.
There was a great deal of implied violence and bullying, but the most disturbing aspect was a scene where two observers of the aggression were comforted, but that comforting became controlling. Heads forcefully turned away from the scene, eyes covered by the comforter's hands, the comforter becoming the oppressor, the comforted the oppressed.
As the blurb on the Restless Dance Theatre website states, "Well intentioned 'help' that smothers potential growth is something people with disability encounter all too often." Denial of the dignity of risk.
This work is so dense that it would take several viewings to take it all in, but that has become typical of this company's presentations. I never leave the theatre after one of their performances feeling the same as I did before it.
I was informed a little while before the show began that one of the dancers, Michael Hodyl, was unable to take part in the premiere due to ill health. I'm quite sure that he was 'gutted' that he could not be there, but the show went on, thanks to the professionalism of this company, and its extraordinary troupe of dancers: Kathryn Adams, Darcy Carpenter, Jianna Georgiou, Alexis Luke, Ashton Malcolm (FOH performer), Michael Noble, Charlie Wilkins, Isadora Sweeney, and Maddy Macera.
The show runs until the 14th March, and I strongly urge you not to miss it.
Reviewed by Ray Smith, Friday 26th February 2021.