Reviewed by Ray Smith, Friday 28th January 2022.
Adelaide Festival Centre's inSPACE program presented Samuel Hall's work in progress,
WOMB, in the most carefully controlled, COVID wary space that I have yet encountered. Vaccination status proof would get you through the door, in order to QR check-in, in order to collect your tickets. A rigorous, and in my opinion totally justified response to the ongoing health crisis that has been hammering the Arts for almost two years, but sadly somewhat impractical in application, as the government websites continue to disappoint. Trying to find the vaccination certificate in a tangled web of inefficient links, that seem to contradict each other, before leading back to the start page, is quite frustrating and time-consuming.
By the time we had proven our status, the performance had already started and the doors were closed. Thankfully, Callan Fleming, Program Coordinator at the Adelaide Festival Centre, took pity on us and led us silently through the narrow corridors of the Drama Centre Rehearsal space, the walls crammed with photographs of past performances, in the very bowels of the Adelaide Festival Centre. He ushered us quietly through the door, and into a small, darkened rehearsal space.
There was no seating at all, the small audience stood or sat on the floor all the way around the rehearsal room, studiously avoiding the four, simple lighting rigs at the quadrants, and the audio and lights mixing desks in one corner of the room. This was not really a performance. It was an open rehearsal of a work in progress, and, as such, is likely to change dramatically before it is presented as a finished piece. It would be foolish of me to try to tell you of the content of the work so far because it will probably never be seen again.
The courage required of a choreographer, or any other artist for that matter, to allow an unfinished work to be seen in public is enormous yet, not only did
Sam Hall bare his creative process, his thinking, his vulnerability, his very soul as it were, but he invited questions and criticism in a Q&A directly after the presentation.
I will share one image with you though. As I entered the rehearsal space it was quite dark, and as my eyes began to accustom themselves, scanning ahead for a foot that I might tread on, the light increased, focussing on the centre of the space. What I saw was an angel floating a metre or so above a large, red foetus. Their soft, white wings were raised high above their head, and cascaded past their feet all the way down to the ground, in a protective cylinder of gossamer.
The angel that I saw was Lily Potger, a very highly skilled dancer and choreographer in their own right, indeed every member of the crew involved in this presentation has an impressive background and impeccable pedigree in the arts.
I was able to chat briefly with Sam and Lily after the show to congratulate them on a wonderful performance, and I did pick up a little hint that, even as the piece continues to be developed, there will be plans afoot to schedule an Adelaide performance of the completed work later this year. I will be at the front of the queue, with my vaccine certificate in hand.
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