Xiao Xiong Zhang, Not According to Plan, Leigh Warren & Dancers, OzAsia Festival photo Tony Lewis |
The work emerged from collaborations between Adelaide-based choreographer Leigh Warren and lighting designer Geoff Cobham with Cambodian born dance artist Xiao-Xiong Zhang (the “subject of the work”), Malaysian-Australian furniture maker Khai Liew, Australian-Vietnamese fashion designer Alistair Trung and Malaysian writer and musician Jerome Kugan. The production unfolds as a set of evocative images that move and transform. We experience this unfolding as waves of sound, colour, light and movement washing across the stage. These images and waves are responses to the life of Xiao-Xiong who is both observer and participant in the unfolding dance. Other elements include: projections of ink wash drawings and calligraphy by Helen Fuller on a rice paper screen; rich, swelling music drawn from a broad palette of sound; Xiao-Xiong’s recorded voice; billowing and fitted intensely coloured costumes (burgundy, black, green) that reference clothing from various Asian countries; an exquisite landscape of finely turned, wooden furniture initially buried beneath a floor ‘cloth’ textured like handmade paper; and boldly coloured light (electric blue and salmon pink among others) that defines the space, the furniture and the dancers.
Xiao Xiong Zhang, Not According to Plan, Leigh Warren & Dancers, OzAsia Festival photo Tony Lewis |
OzAsia Festival, Leigh Warren & Dancers, Not According To Plan, choreographer Leigh Warren, performers Rebecca Jones, Aidan Munn, Yuan-Li Wang, Chien-Wei Wu, Xiao-Xiong Zhang; Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre, 20-21 Sept
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This article first appeared as part of RT's online e-dition 20 November, 2013
RealTime issue #118 Dec-Jan 2013 pg. 31
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