One Infinity

Since leaving Chunky Move, the dance company he founded in Melbourne, choreographer/director Gideon Obarzanek has taken a lively interest in the spoken word and other storytelling techniques of the theatre.

One Infinity is, by contrast, an hypnotic collaboration between Chinese musicians and ten dancers from the Beijing Dance Theater and Australia’s Dance North. 

Its contemplative power is set by the musicians sitting on a reflective floor between the two opposing banks of audience. The virtuosic Genevieve Lacey is spellbinding on recorder; while a trio led by Chinese gugin master Wang Peng draw from these zither style, seven stringed instruments beautifully plucked varied tones, flutterings and occasional frenzies of sound, with birdsong hovering. 

The dancers join them at times on the floor but also dance in waves from seats amongst us. And we too play a part, coached to create, with arms at least, a mass of empathetic  movement.  It’s uplifting (and non-threatening!) audience participation and wondrous to watch in our colleagues opposite.  And it’s wonderfully lit.

The dancers slowly sway, mirror, spoon and deflect across each other, but some of the dancers deliver the choreography as more athletic than emotionally expressive.

One Infinity begins as mesmerizing and spiritual, but finally it threatens to be soporific, certainly repetitive.  For others perhaps less restless than me, it offers a profound and stirring hour of cross-cultural contemplation.

Martin Portus

Photographer: Angus Kemp