LOVE ARENA a captivating exploration of rhythm and organic forms
Remy Rochester & Jasmin Luna: concept, choreography and performers
Sydney Fringe Festival, Sydney Dance Company Neilson Studio, 28th September, 2024.
review by Lexy Panetta
Sydney based artists Jasmin Luna and Remy Rochester offered a fascinating exploration of rhythm and nature in their new contemporary dance duet Love Arena. The work left me hypnotised with its continual outpouring of energy, textured synchronicity and intricate detail.
Love Arena reflects the cyclical nature of our inner and outer worlds through an exploration of tension and resolve. The program notes declare the works exploration of ecological themes, specifically addressing “human symmetry with the natural environments”, which evidently reflected on the performers' (re)connection to organic harmony and rhythm. From the outset, Love Arena explores these themes through organic movement and attention to the embodiment of the subtle, harmonious rhythms of the Alyx Denison score, with which the dancers resonate and predict, preempt and follow. The symmetry of the score is also reflected in the choreography with its attention to dual patterns, not only in the fact that this is a duet, but also through the compositional choices that blur the lines between who is affecting who—the body of the other, one’s own body or the ‘body’ of the environment.
The work is called Love Arena because it refers to the proximity of two beings and their interdependence of energy, resonance, and rhythm within a shared space. The choreography reflects this through a variety of movement and spatial choices that evidence a call and affect resonance and symmetry, demonstrating a captivating exploration of rhythm and organic forms.
Love Arena’s design is minimalist. The stage is firstly set in a dull glow, making the dancers only just visible as they make small actions lying on the floor. They nestle on their backs with their knees bent upwards to fit within the base of a cylindrical, draping net structure that cascades from the ceiling. The structure recalled a tree for me, a soft pillar in the centre of the stage with a texture of veins, evoking the softness of many organic forms.
The dancers unfurl, imitating the roots of this tree. The pulsating overhead lighting changes the design from dark low lighting to a warm glow, accompanied by a surging synth Dennison’s score, which signals to the dancers’ to evolve into their next state.
Here their movements synchronise, they are intricate, unfurling actions that move the dancers out from within their tree trunk into a pulsating light and soundscape. This alert section felt like watching an organism change within a time-lapse of day and night.
Costumes in Love Arena were minimal, with warm and earthy toned trousers and a net textured fabric providing transparent coverage for the dancers’ upper bodies, it reminded me of moss. As the sleeves draped their arms, the costumes offered an organic continuation of their movements throughout the work, providing another visual element that complicated and obscured the silhouette of their human-organic forms.
The performers seemed engrossed by one another and began to expand out from the central prop, working as one unit, filling the voids of each other’s negative space. They moved with a combination of rippling energy and staccato pauses, shifting the physical reactions as they interplayed with one another’s positioning; either being affected by the other or relocating to replace the others shape in the space. The choreography tessellates through space, the dancers still engrossed in one another’s forms, shifting and collecting each other’s energy – again… it was difficult to discern who or what was being affected or doing the affecting.
After exploring the stage, tracing the rhythms of one another’s movements, they trailed off into individual explorations of those rhythms, interspersed with subtle synchronised sections. They minimise their movements, reduce their speed, retract back towards the netted trunk. They vibrate and surge back to their starting position, reflecting the completion of the cycle of their organic, rhythmic journey.
Whilst I think it would have been effective to see a more purposeful incorporation of the prop suspended from the ceiling, Remy Rochester & Jasmin Luna have created a strong work that encompasses an organic build using mirroring, rhythmical shifts and moments of unison. It would be great to see Love Arena offered the chance for further development, expanding on its founding concepts and extending it from its current short running time of 25 minutes. There was obviously a clear commitment in Love Arena from both performer/choreographers to maintain a steady intention in the work: the interplay of rhythm through which they sought to explore the cadences of each other, echoing from one body to another body, and from each to their environment and back again. It was a captivating work and demonstrated the potential of these two young choreographers. I hope they get other chances to show us what they can do.
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LOVE ARENA
Sydney Fringe Festival, Dance Hub, Sydney Dance Company Neilson Studio, 26-28 September 2024
Remy Rochester & Jasmin Luna: concept, choreography and performers
Composer: Alyx Dennison
Costumes and Set Design: Jasmin Luna
Lighting Designer: Saint Clair
Mentor: Kristina Chan
Supported by: Catapult Choreographic Hub, Legs on the Wall, Create NSW, Critical Path, Dance Makers Collective, Sydney Fringe Festival, and Sydney Dance Company.
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Alexandria (Lexy) Panetta is a Sydney-based independent artist, choreographer, and academic with interest in dance performance, improvisation, choreography, and film. Lexy also works part-time as a tutor at the Australian College of Physical Education (ACPE), is the Learning Associate for the Sydney Dance Company (SDC), and tours as a Teaching Artist for SDC.