Review: WHISPERS DOWN THE LANE - ADELAIDE FRINGE 2023 at Studio 166, Goodwood Theatre And Studios

Reviewed by Ray Smith, Saturday 18th February 2023

The world premiere of Chloe Moir's Whispers Down The Lane was offered in the comfortable and inviting environment of Studio 166, an intimate venue that was the perfect choice for Moir's experimental work. I had never attended any events at this venue before and I was struck, not only by the warmth of the décor in the foyer and bar, but also by the warmth of the welcome that was offered to the patrons as we entered this charming space, by the open and friendly attentiveness of the venue's staff.

The performance space itself is tiny, but very versatile, with a seating capacity of only 50, which added to the strong feeling of intimacy and that of a selective, almost secretive gathering.

The performance we were about to see was the world premiere of this new work by Moir, but, in reality, every performance of this piece could be regarded as a world premiere, in that a great deal of the performance is improvised by the dancers themselves and would never be repeated in subsequent performances.

The concept is a thoroughly intriguing one and is a physical manifestation of the old children's game of whispers, where a whispered phrase is passed from one person to the next and subtly alters as each individual adds or subtracts sections of the phrase, or simply mishears it and passes on what they thought they heard. A classic example from the First World War is often cited, in which the original message was, "send reinforcements, we're going to advance", but was morphed by mishearing into, "send three and fourpence, we're going to a dance", and Moir's opening gambit was a demonstration of exactly that process.

The dancers stood in a line shoulder to shoulder and passed a whisper down the line. At the conclusion of the process, the first whisperer would speak their original phrase, and the final receiver of the whisper would speak their, often amusing, interpretation of it. This was repeated a few times, with the dancers re-arranging their order in the line and passing the whisper from one to the next, passively explaining to the audience the nature of this fascinating work.

The whispers completed, and the ground rules set, the dancers formed another line across the space, but this time all facing in the same direction, each with their back to the person behind them.
The first dancer would tap their closest colleague on the shoulder, and when that person had turned around, would demonstrate a series of often complex, improvised movements for the second dancer to observe and attempt to learn. The second dancer would tap the third on the shoulder and demonstrate their interpretation of the movements that they had learned, and so on down the line until the fifth and final dancer had received their instructions on the movement. Then the dancers would turn to face the audience, still in their designated position in the line, and after a count-in cue from the first dancer, would perform their interpretations of the movement. While the interpretations were all quite different, it would be impossible to label them as wrong, because Moir had carefully selected the members of her troupe, and each of them was a dancer of extraordinary skill, grace, and agility, and each of the interpretations were as valid as the original movement.

As a musician with an abiding interest in the traditional music of my native home on the Scottish and English border, I was struck by the similarities between the performance that I was witnessing and that of the oral/aural transmission of musical pieces that have developed, over centuries of individual interpretations, their own regional variations, musical accents or dialects that reflect the experiences and local styles of the interpreter of the original piece.

So it was with Whispers Down the Lane, as each of the individual dancers applied their own, very individual styles to their interpretation of the original improvisation. It was utterly entrancing.

There were choreographed sections of the work, that allowed the dancers to position themselves in their various lines of communication, but also some more refined sections that featured pas de deux and solo sections that allowed these exquisite dancers to strut their stuff. I was delighted to see Amelia Walmsley and Samuel Matthewman offer some beautifully controlled physical theatre that brought one of my heroes, Moses Pendleton and Momix to mind, while Beth Mooney and Vitor Faustino Dos Santos seemed to move intuitively together in the curious but altogether successful coupling of a young woman who has performed with the Daniel Riley's Australian Dance Theatre, and a literary young man who was taking part in his first dance performance ever. These are five young artists that one would be wise to look out for.

This is a brave and intellectual work that is worthy of many more performances than the two sold-out shows in the 2023 Adelaide Fringe, and I look forward to future presentations of it to larger audiences in larger venues.