The Pulse

A bare stage is illuminated by stark white lights that point directly down through the haze. First a few people, dressed in shades of grey, walk quickly in straight lines, turning sharply, never once touching another. Then the stage is filled with grey men and women, moving around one another to the background of rising voices – choral and chatter. Just when you become comfortable with the patterns of movement – walking, lying down and rising again – you’re reminded that this isn’t just a great dance company, but a group of talented young people who literally throw each other around the stage – tossing, tumbling, twisting and turning, but always landing impossibly smoothly.

Gravity and Other Myths has grown from its first show (A Simple Space) into a large touring company, whose way of working crumbled in 2020, much less elegantly than their three or four person towers do in this show. Rather than having up to three smaller groups somewhere else in the world, the entire team was home in Adelaide, which led to this unique opportunity to create a much larger show than usual. Following on from the Helpmann Award-winning Out of Chaos from the Adelaide Festival in 2019, this new creation is from the same team of director Darcy Grant, designer Geoff Cobham and composer Ekrem Eli Phoenix.

The smooth movements of individuals are as graceful in dance as their mind-boggling acrobatics (the woman throwing in a hands-free forward flip as the group walks off stage is ridiculously cool), but it is their human towers that command the longest held breaths, the loudest gasps, and the craziest applause. It’s not enough that they can get a person standing on the shoulders of another standing on the shoulders of a third, but they have the entire company doing that. And then they run around in circles whilst doing it, then the person on top flips from their feet to their hands, and so on. It’s marvellous stuff: precisely choreographed and perfectly executed. And the compositions of humans supporting each other in these constructions are astonishing both physically and visually.

The physical from Gravity and Other Myths is paired with the superb choral work of Aurora, the senior vocal ensemble of the South Australian youth choir Young Adelaide Voices. Directed by Christie Anderson, the thirty voices elevate the acrobatic even higher, particularly because these voices are live, with the choral performers moving amongst the acrobats.

Cobham’s lighting design is always brilliant and this is no exception – from the precision of lighting just the right amount of a set-free stage to casting light along complex rope constructions, it is an essential component of the overall production.

It’s not all perfect though: the constant chatter that didn’t work in Out of Chaos is still just a distraction here; and whilst the rope constructions are visually arresting, the performers pulling it together from the back of the auditorium is anti-climactic. The stated themes of ‘cause and effect’ are evident here as the crowd changes an individual, or vice versa, but these are moments; the story-telling doesn’t extend much beyond that.

What’s returned this time are more elements of cheekiness from the group – the chorus from a person stepping on a row of others is hilarious – and there are other moments where the performers share knowing glances: it’s abundantly clear that these people have tremendous trust for one another, as they need to have when you’re throwing yourself from the shoulders of one hoping to land upside down on another.

There are quieter moments of individual talent between the group pieces, showcasing the skills and versatility of these performers: their elegance in silky-smooth movement is just as impressive as their jumping and tumbling. But it is the huge set-pieces that provoke the wide-eyed, open-mouthed responses from the full auditorium.

The movement is hugely exciting, graceful, and visually stunning. The chorus gives you goosebumps. And the standing ovation it all earns is joyful from the stage to the auditorium.

Mark Wickett

Photographer: Darcy Grant

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