Ocean Wave
Kings & Queens, Performing Arts Centre, Dunedin
02/09/2011 - 02/09/2011
Production Details
Celebrating the St Kilda and St Clair community through music and dance with an oceanic theme.
Guest artists: Forbury School, Lisa Wilkinson and Rasa Dance Company, Kilda Nothcott, Ake Ake Theatre, Brenda Kydd, Hahna Briggs, Sofia Kalogeropoulou and Ana Martino.
2.5hrs
Celebrating the ocean's role in community life
Review by Kasey Dewar 03rd Sep 2011
The production ‘Ocean Wave’ was inspired by by a poem written by Dunedin dancer Caroline Plummer when she was battling cancer. Caroline would walk along the local beaches at St Kilda and St Clair where she found the ocean a source of strength and peace. The poem provided this year’s Otago University Caroline Plummer Fellow, choreographer Lyne Pringle with the idea of exploring the community’s relationship with the ocean, and sparked a six month-long residency at Forbury School, working with the community and the students to create this grand community show.
Right from the start, this entertaining production draws the audience in. It begins with a wetsuit-clad Rhys Latton who has everyong giggling as he convinces the audience to all take part in a Mexican wave. Soon, he is joined on stage by fellow Dancers Sofia Kalogeroupoulou, Brendan Kydd and Hahna Briggs, together reconstructing a traditional life saving drill to honour the St Clair Surf Life Saving Club which has just reached 100 years of operation. Hahna “swims” to the top of the stairs, is rescued by Brendan, attached to a rope, and hauled back in by the other 2 lifesavers.
The show progresses with a medley of Titanic-themed songs played by the St Kilda Brass Band conducted by Davey Boyes, while a romantic duet from Sofia Kalogeroupoulou and Brendan Kydd plays out in front of them, and a little bit of humour is added as a tiny polystyrene iceberg is dragged across the stage!
A beautiful piece composed by Peter Meechan follows, ‘The Pohutukawa Stands’, created to convey the sadness after the Christchurch earthquake in February, but to also show the hope of a city being rebuilt.
The first half comes to a close with video from the No Drilling protest held at St Clair beach in June this year, and a couple more rousing songs from the band including ‘Domen’ with a solo from Rosie Evans on the Flugel Horn, and ‘Padstow Life Boat’ composed for a life boat launch in England, complete with a fog horn sound, and the audience is challenged to keep track of how many times the fog horn is sounded.
The second half opens with with an energetic contemporary dance with a water theme, presented by Lisa Wilkinson and the Rasa Dance Company. My favourite part of the concert soon after, is a duet from Sofia Kalogeroupoulou and Ana Martino – a beautifully choreographed classical dance showing the moon pulling the ocean around the planet. I particularly like how the dancers interact with each other and the ending where the ocean was wrapped in fabric and gently dragged from the stage by the moon.
From here the show steps up a gear towards the finale. The band plays 2 fast-paced songs in a row, including one which is a mixture of British sea songs accompanied by audience clapping. The life guard quartet from the beginning of the show re-appear, this time performing a deconstruction of surf lifesaving drills, with forward rolls, lifts and headstands and a bit of larking abou. Their pretense to be various sea creatures again had the audience in fits of giggles!
The finale of the concert is pesented by children from Forbury School, choreographed by Lyne Pringle and her assistant Victoria Nafatali. Lyne directs from the front of the stage while the children variously race across the stage with fabric flags, perform little dances in pairs, and come together into a lrge scale choreographed dance at the end. Their timing was impeccable and it was obvious from the smiles on their faces they were thoroughly enjoying themselves!
I felt the concert definitely achieved what it set out to do, presenting a range of dance styles accompanied by amazing music from the St Kilda Brass Band with the themes of water, the ocean and people’s feelings towards it woven throughout. Audience participation was encouraged and it would have been hard to lose interest with snippets of upbeat and raucous music and dance throughout. Lyne, the band and performers certainly deserved the large rounds of applause received..
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