All great performance concepts have a hook that drags us in and won’t let go.

Rebecca Jensen’s Slip grabs us from the very first second and locks us into a degree of concentration so deeply satisfying that we often need a moment – sometimes more than that – to recover when a key moment ends, and the narrative moves on. Jensen creates those moments, and to be honest, I haven’t stopped thinking about them, and revisiting them, since I left the Q Theatre Loft after Slip closed a couple of nights ago.

The hook is deeply embedded, I’m done for, and I’m not complaining.

Great art and great artists do that to us, the memories attach over time, and the dots connect in a myriad of ways that help to make us who we are. We exist in those moments, and, just as in Slip, we find we can move back in time to experience them again, and again, and again.

In my case, these transitory recollections constitute my sanity: Uwe Eric Laufenberg’s 1997 production of Hamlet at the Schauspielhaus, Zurich with Ludwig Boettger as Hamlet, Hamlet again, this time directed by Steven Pimlott at the Jam Factory in 2001 with Sam West in the title role, Douglas Wright in Knee Dance in ‘83 and Faun Variations in ‘87, Mary Jane O’Reilly, solo, in Chimera at Southern Ballet in 1988, Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay and Ken Stott in Yasmina Reza’s Art at the Wyndham Theatre, London in 1997, and the Kiev Ballet’s baby ballerinas who found the real darkness in The Nutcracker during a Sadler’s Wells matinee on Boxing Day 1997.

Now add Rebecca Jensen in Slip.

Jensen is an expat dancer, choreographer, and teacher based in Naarm/Melbourne Australia. Her bio tells us that her work ‘considers the equally speculative and practical forces of dance practice, with sustaining interests in multiplicity, memory, time, and the influence of expanding digital technologies. Several of her ongoing projects examine social and ecological systems through improvised group dances.’

Don’t you just love dancers, no-one else on the planet talks like that.

In 2013, Jensen co-founded the participatory project ‘Deep Soulful Sweats’ with Sarah Aiken, their collaborative work investigating and subverting the roles of performance, considering complicity and commonality of audience and performer.’

Subversion? I like that. I like that very much, because art should always undercut and challenge the norms and mores of our lives, and of society. This ‘subversion’ is more than evident in Slip with Jensen continually inviting us in until she’s had enough of that, and she chooses to move on. Nothing happens by chance; she knows where she’s going and it’s our job to keep up.

This is perfect because Slip is designed to relentlessly move on, while being equally able to move back at will, yet being similarly adept at staying in the moment.

Sound confusing? It’s not, not at all.

The informative Tempo website describes Slip as ‘a captivating duet between sound artist Aviva Endean and Jensen that unravels the intricate threads connecting sound, image, and time. This layered work invites audiences to delve into the entanglement of all things, exploring the delicate balance between synchrony and disconnection, whether with our histories, the natural environment, our bodies, or each other.’

Hmmm, well yes, marketing always wants to promote product as all things to all people, but Slip is much more nuanced than even the advertising claims. It’s not called Slip for nothing, and just when we think we’ve got a handle on what it is, on its slipperiness, it becomes something else entirely, but not entirely, never entirely, because it’s narrative-driven and there is a clear through line. Just think the spaces between things, objects, bodies, and you’ll be on the right track.

Unless I’m wrong. In which case, just trust Jensen’s processes because that works too.

My research (I do love the research, so much to find out, so much to groove on), my research tells me that ‘through the illusion of Foley art, Slip confronts the complexity of our present reality.’

Yep, it most surely does that. We spend our hour with Jensen and Endean confronting the moment (or sometimes that moment a moment ago) and its totally riveting.

We learn that Foley is ‘a cinematic technique where sounds are recreated using eclectic objects and body movements, becoming a tool to explore the interplay between sound and movement. In Slip, delay, dissonance, and slippage disrupt the harmony, pulling apart familiar pairings and abstracting them into a realm where connections are severed, rewired, and stretched to the point of absurdity.’

In case you missed any of that, we’re also told that ‘Slip is a thought-provoking journey through the spaces where sound and movement meet, offering a reflection on the fragility of our connections and the ever-present threat of falling out of sync with the world around us.’

Yes indeed, that’s exactly what Slip is, a reflection on the fragility of our connections and the threat of falling out of sync with the world around us.

Slip was ‘initially commissioned for the 2022 Keir Choreographic Award by Dancehouse, the Keir Foundation, and Australia Council for the Arts, with presenting partner Carriageworks with further development supported by a Lucy Guerin Inc ‘Moving Forward’ Residency, and the Chloe Munro Fellowship.’ I’m sure Jensen said a big ‘thank you’ to everyone for the support and I’d like to do the same. If Slip (and Jensen) can move audiences to the degree that she moved me, the support she’s received was visionary and is really doing its job.

Aviva Endean is great too. She’s a multi-talented musician and noisemaker who enables the exploration of the space between she and Jensen possible simply by being there. She’s unobtrusive and reminds me throughout of my not altogether happy time with radio drama, all those bizarre sound effects, dull scripts (nothing dull about Slip), grumpy directors, never enough time, and the ever-present and gently terrifying boom mic that still regularly haunts my dreams.

Have to say, too, that it’s great to read that ‘this tour is supported by Creative New Zealand.’ I’d started to wonder if CNZ had actually gone to sleep at the wheel. Apparently not, so good job that mob.

We enter the Loft and there’s that moment where we wonder what’s in store. I like that moment and I’m seldom disappointed. The lighting, suitably subdued, focuses on a tray full of grit, a couple of jugs of water, and the ubiquitous boom mic. I feel as though my life has been lived with a boom mic in my face. It’s OK though, Endean proves skilled and adept with it and keeps the bloody thing away from me. Two figures, imp-like refugees from Neil Young’s Rust Never Sleeps, appear, empty and fill the jugs of water, and scrunch around in the trays. I get it, SFX of water running and feet on gravel. There is a table laden of eclectic sound and tech gear (mercifully no coconut shells) and a knot of cables behind which Endean places herself and skillfully creates a soundtrack that underpins the actions of Jensen who has entered dressed in classic Anne Boleyn garb, a beautiful Tudor dress, and wonderful braids that mirror the headwear of women in early 16^th century London.

And Princess Leia, of course. She has them too.

It’s an impressive image, and Jensen wears the gear like she was born to it.

There follows a period where Endean makes sounds that connect to Jensen’s actions and it’s a really fun watch – except when they get out of sync. That makes me anxious until I realise it’s intentional, of course it is, and that Jensen is actually replicating her moves from a few seconds before, only backwards. It’s smart stuff. Clever. I’m more than fully engaged. There’s one of those special silences that let the arcane sounds really take hold, really have a life of their own, at one time a score to dance to, at another a counterpoint to dance against.

Suddenly Jensen is standing in front of me, bugger the fourth wall, and she half turns away upstage, and speaks. I haven’t heard what she said so I’m not sure what she wants me to do, clearly something important and, of course, the show can’t continue until I get my damn act together and do as I’ve been asked – and time stands still (it does that when you’re freaking out, have you noticed?) After what feels like at least a week, a familiar voice whispers in my ear ‘pull the zip down’ and now I realise what my job is. It takes a wee moment – I call it ‘The Long Unzipping’ (apologies to Michael Parmenter) – but the job is completed, and the frock falls to the floor. The show moves on with more synchronised wild sound and delicious movement and I slide back into anonymity. No peace though. Jensen is by the boom mic again. this time crunching a Doritos bag. The mic picks up the sound, and there is a ripple of laughter. Without warning, Jensen leaves the mic and returns to the front row where she shares her Doritos with me and my whānau but this time I am much less stressed. It’s nice to crunch on a Dorito and not have to care about how much noise I make, and for once to know exactly what is expected of me. I am a crunch maker, and I do a good job (hardly an Oompa Loompa or worthy of a programme credit but I’ll happily settle for it).

I think to myself, ‘let’s hope that’s it for audience participation’ (secretly though, in retrospect, I loved every nanosecond of it).

Jensen moves into a new phase, dance that is poetic, smooth, lyrical, flowing – in my head I call it ‘pure dance’ – delicate, sensual, flexible beyond words, her body pliable, it’s unblemished physical storytelling at its most flawless. A long drape upstage is pulled aside to reveal a screen of stunning projections, but they’re sadly gone almost as quickly as they appear.

Endean and Jensen are far apart but in sync, a guitar lowers from the grid and Endean sits on a mattress and plays – she’s good, very good – and still Jensen dances, her movements sublime, hypnotic.

Then it’s over. I’m really moved. There are tears I hadn’t noticed. The audience is silent, then erupts. I’m pleased I’m not alone in my admiration of this excellent work.

As my mind flashes back over the performance I’m reminded of Jensen’s interest in the space between her body and someone else’s and how she likes to work in the space between. This resonates with what I’ve just experienced, and I realise how courageous this work is. As artists we crave connection, but all the interesting stuff happens ‘off the ball’ so to speak, in the spaces between us, and these amazing women have embodied this concept perfectly.

In interview, Jensen talks about travelling back three seconds in time to repeat what she was doing three seconds ago but in reverse, time jumps, and I realise how well this has been achieved, how hard this is to bring off.

I also recall Jensen saying she hoped to create a work where she leaned into the space between what is real and what isn’t real, especially as we live in a world where we are dealing with everything around us being processed ‘like a production line, so that by the time it get to us, into our hands, we don’t know what it’s been through, and we’re seeing reproductions of things, echo chambers bouncing around in our algorithms’, and I clearly understand how this is made manifest in Slip. I adore the ‘glimpses of characters’ she populates her work with, and not just via costume but through every fibre of her physical being. So many new characters, all miniscule, but clearly drawn.

Did I enjoy Slip?

Yes, I did. Without doubt it’s my festival favourite. Jensen and Endean make a splendid team tackling complex work and winning on all fronts. Jensen is an outstanding dancer. Her choreography is complex and fulfilling. Endean is subtle magic, the space they create between them is rich, nuanced, and lived in.

I walk away happy, the embarrassment of ‘The Long Unzipping’ a faded memory.

I am happy.

More please.

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