Backlit Productions were invited to remount their full length dance work The Hungry Attic for Tempo Festival 2010. It was presented at TAPAC over three nights from 29^th Sept to 1^st Oct and was originally staged at The Basement in March of this year.

The show was made-to-fit The Basement venue, so one of the challenges Backlit was dealing with for this work’s remounting, was the translation of the work from its small, gritty and intimate birthplace, to the clean, expansive breadth of the TAPAC theatre. Whilst I did not see the original production in The Basement, so I can’t compare the differences, I can imagine some of the images in the show working really in that smaller space.

Eloquent descriptions of The Hungry Attic have already been posted in reviews of the March season by Raewyn White [here] and Felicity Molloy [here]. So instead of re-describing the work itself I would like to focus my discussion on how The Hungry Attic might be contributing to a contextualising of Backlit Productions into the ‘New Zealand Contemporary Dance scene’, and issues around representation inherent to this work and to this dance company. 

How might this work in particular be contributing to a definition of Backlit as a company? Before the show started I was curious to know how the company saw themselves, how they describe themselves. I searched the program notes for a mission statement that outlines aims or some sort of defining point for who they are as a dance company.

I wanted to know more about their politics; not satisfied by “a versatile, creative and exciting Company”, I decide to look to the work to find my answers. My first impression, as I walk into the preset image of six reclining female bodies, brings out thoughts around ‘beauty’ and the body. The concept of beauty seems pertinent to this work and in this case I mean a conventional concept of what ‘beauty’ might be. The Hungry Attic does not specifically address commentary on these ideas but, none the less, statements are being made about ‘beauty’ via choices in costuming, casting, and performance content. 

I have seen other Backlit productions and in comparison I really noticed the difference in company casting for The Hungry Attic. The company itself was ‘saying’ something different just by the nature of who was performing. The state in the program notes that some company members have other commitments at this time and so the piece was performed, in this case, by 6 female performers: Annabel Harrison, Mandy Leckie, Lucy Miles, Tracey Purcell, and two new company members and recent Unitec Graduates, Amy Mauvan and Serene Lorimer. I was aware of the absence of Janine Parkes, Shannon Mutu and Georgie Goater, three core and original members of the company.

As performers we convey information about our histories and back stories just by the nature of inhabiting our bodies; our bodies read as political cartographies of our upbringing, our values, and lifestyles. So intentionally or unintentionally, Backlit is sending a lot of information to their audience about their personal politics.

For me, the company casting was not as diverse in personality and unintentional back stories, somehow it seemed homogenised not only by a predominance of long, blond, well kept hair (a superficial note but one that stands out), but with a certain similarity in performance quality also? Backlit is quite obviously composed of a group of youthful female dancers who easily fit into modern ideals of beauty and the body. But is Backlit inadvertently normalising stereotypes around the gendered female body? As irrelevant as this may seem to the discussion of this work, for some, my reading of the piece was certainly coloured by these issues.

The costumes emphasised the shape of the female body, drawing our attention to one characteristic: the breasts. Strangely, whilst we are very aware that we are looking at women, the voice of the work seems to come from, more often than not, a child’s perception of, and existence in, the world of The Hungry Attic.

Why, then, the emphasis on the female form? Here I consider a continuance of a tradition not talked about, that of coupling Contemporary Dance with a romantic vision of a graceful and ‘feminine’ female beauty. 

The show’s subject matter is the ideas, images, and memories conjured by the title. The material is wide-ranging, and lives up to being ‘fragmented images’ and ‘several stories’ interwoven. For me the stories are again predominated by a child’s voice – an innocent and vivid imagination, one that associates with a familiar white middle class culture.

The audience is assumed to identify with the shows content, and judging by the forum after the show, the audience that stayed to talk did seem to ‘get it’. But by the end of the show I am left feeling like mainstream conventions of representation are not being addressed or questioned by the company and that their position of privilege has perhaps not yet been fully self realised. I feel somewhat alienated by the work as if I don’t fit in, or just don’t get it.

I would like to get a more of a sense of Backlit Productions’ specific identity, politics, and see them claim what makes them unique as a Contemporary Dance company. I wonder what it was that originally inspired the forging of this company and what keeps them together now…? In any case I am certainly inspired by their tenacity as a collective company model and look forward to seeing what next steps they make together. 

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The Hungry Attic is the latest production for the maturing Auckland based group, Backlit Productions. The Basement Theatre becomes like an attic for their latest collaborative show. Even in the confined space of this tiny theatre their work stands out as a must see event. A programme note “a place where memories are lost” is a perfect description for a sensitive, mystery-filled evening of dance.

As dancers Annabel Harrison, Colette Arnold, Georgie Goater, Janine Parkes, Lucy Miles, Mandy Leckie, Shannon Mutu and Tracey Purcell all deserve mention. They really strike a satisfying chord with my watcher sensibilities. Each dancer brings subtle characteristics to reveal self-narrated movement portraits. From the lithe delicacy of Lucy Miles, Shannon Mutu’s hilarious attempt to fly with cardboard wings, the extreme precision of Tracey Purcell to the generous, calm length of Georgie Goater, every single movement is designed to be seen, every juxtapose of position examined and each scene delivered like a silhouetted contour of feminine grace.

What is great about Backlit is their capacity to leave each other alone, to let each dance section form out of their extended interplay and thereby release the work from familiar dance vocabularies. Although they are costumed similarly, in designs of soft flesh colours tops, white petticoats and bloomers, each dance section allows one then the other dancer to draw fragments of stories from out of their bodies and into the whole. At the same time each body’s difference is signature to the event. In these ways the evening becomes more like physical theatre than the abstract choreographic shapes of contemporary dance.

All but two of the dancers (Mandy Leckie and Tracey Purcell) co-choreographed The Hungry Attic. A range of music selections mixed by Amin Payne exposes an important choreographic allowance that Backlit have made to their interchanges.

As performers, Backlit seem less cluttered, more vibrant, less anxious, more sure. A more developed integration of sequences gives the dancers opportunities to not only flock in their dance space but to advance a strangely taut narrative. As choreographers their penchant for developing discontinuous short acts pitches the dance oddly into a world of generic lonely behaviours.

A nice, early staged add-on was the flicking of flour, like dust from the dancers’ bodies hands, costumes and set. Lighting designed by Ambrose! catches the swift flicker of the dust before it settles and emphasises each turn of bodies in space. This strange, mesmeric quality suspends the moment again and again and I find myself pondering the meaning of “instance”. As much as the title, the stacks of emptied boxes and the muted golden lighting draws the audience into the feeling of the quiet, long-left space of a dark attic, it was in one of their several repetitive flowing sequences I really did feel time was made still.

At the end of the work, sand pours from a bucket, flowing seamlessly like a lick across the dark air and lands as location for the next act. Earthy signatures are part of Janine Parkes’ sensuous vocabulary. Her Butohesque pace and subtle grimaces give the company a strong expressive pathway. This ending scene, beautifully paced and caught in an intense bundling of bodies and green silk skirts, became for me another beginning.

It is not so much in the formation of Backlit’s work; the hooked sections of choreographies and thoughtful concepts, that their ongoing success is assured. It is more in being able to witness their art on so many more levels. I know this company will be seen a thousand times and their choreographies more certainly revealed as the embedded nuances of clever and enduring artists. As I left the theatre, walking into the dense humid darkness of Auckland’s endless summer, I realised how much I look forward to seeing this company again.

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A chalked skyline steadily expanding across the theatre’s walls leads us from the lobby into the close confines of The Basement Theatre in Backlit Productions’ brand new collaborative experiment, The Hungry Attic. 

As we follow the chalkline into the theatre, the scritching of the chalk on the walls is echoed by Amin Payne’s ambient mix, along with muffled street sounds and quietly shuffling feet. As we wait for the work to start, the sounds slowly quieten to a meditative background hum. It’s as if we are in church waiting for more formal proceedings to begin.

Across the black floor, seven bodies lie as if sleeping, clad in buff-coloured Shapewear camisoles and white cotton skirts or petticoats or knickerbockers, their skin glowing in the slowly warming light which suffuses the space. The seven women slowly waken, stir, roll and crawl, rise to their feet and begin chalking shapes on the floor and walls. The group’s numbers ebb and flow until three remain, each surrounded by a corona of white dust raised as they fluff up their clothing or strike their bodies. The lighting slowly fades and we become aware of a room beyond them, behind a scrim on the back wall, filled with cardboard boxes and an eighth woman delving into the boxes.

This beautifully flowing series of episodes is followed by another dozen or so thoughtfully structured sections which lead us deeper into the realm of the attic. Along the way we discover what is hidden in the boxes, and get glimpses into the lives of these women. 

The mood for each episode is evocatively set by the ever-morphing soundscore which includes sources ranging from Kode 9 to Alex and Jonsey, Philip Wilkerson to Black Foldy. Lighting by Ambrose! is always sympathetic, combining racked side lights at lower levels and a small amount of top lighting which plays beautifully with chalk dust.

The pace builds and the soundscore becomes a rhythmic, driving force. The box labelled “Things” is raided and provides an array of brightly coloured clothing, rapidly donned. As the work reaches its climax, individual personalities emerge … and intense interactions result, providing rich contrasts to the preceding sections. 

As dancers, the eight women of BackLit form a cohesive ensemble throughout the work, deftly and confidently moving across the floor, securely lifting and supporting one another in partner work, and competently manipulating objects ranging from giant cardboard boxes and tiny toys to glasses of water and handfuls of chalk dust. They flow easily through the solos, duos and trios which are generously scattered throughout the work, and all are eminently watchable. 

Choreographic credit for The Hungry Attic – their third evening-length work and by far the most fully realized to date – is shared by six of the eight BackLit performers. Production and direction are also shared responsibilities, and the group is responsible for their own lighting, design and promotion. This unique model works very well for their team.
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