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 “There has to be clarity in chaos”: director MICHELLE RYAN tells SEANNA VAN HELTEN about the madcap new Dancenorth production NIGHTCAFE, featuring six dancers, a live band, and flying furniture.
With a truck full of chairs, liquor bottles, parquet flooring, jazz-age suits and flapper dresses and a five-piece gypsy band in tow, transporting the Townsville-based dance company Dancenorth to 23 venues over seven weeks must resemble something of an itinerant carnival: “We look quite a sight when we turn up in town!” laughs director Michelle Ryan.
Dancenorth is touring a remount production of Nightcafe, originally choreographed in 2007 by Gavin Webber and dancers, and directed for its current Australian tour (with a new cast of dancers and live band Waiting For Guinness) by Michelle Ryan. On the phone from Parramatta (about to perform “show number 15”), Ryan says she is looking forward to bumping in to the Brisbane Powerhouse Theatre at the tail end of the tour. “It’s one of my favourite spaces,” she says, adding, “We’ve been performing in anything from a proscenium arch theatre to a small town hall… We will be having cabaret seating in the Powerhouse, which will add to the atmosphere.”
Nightcafe attempts to capture, through dance and live music, the essence of an electric, sensuous club atmosphere. “The emphasis is on the music and the energy it creates,” says Ryan. The show begins in a darkened nightclub before opening hours, draped with remnants of the night before. Streamers and balloons still dangle from above, as the bartenders lazily clean up before re-opening.
As the club slowly wakes, the dancers and on-stage band Waiting For Guinness whip the stage into a chaotic frenzy. “It’s slinky, it’s sexy, the music is sleek, and you automatically want to start tapping your feet,” explains Ryan. “We throw bottles around, we throw chairs around, we have a good time with all the music. It’s pretty fun actually!”
Dancenorth productions are highly physical, tightly choreographed and often require the dancers to throw their bodies about the stage with an exertion usually demanded of stunt actors or extreme sportspeople. Ryan praises her cast of dancers’ “hand-eye coordination” in Nightcafe: “We do throw a lot of props around! My latest catchphrase is there has to be clarity in chaos, as it has to be quite clean in order to look chaotic.”
The piece evolved in a short development, during which choreographer Webber and the dancers wanted to create a “celebration” piece. “The whole idea for doing Nightcafe was actually just to have an enjoyable experience,” explains Ryan. Their starting points were a film noir-style murder mystery and a 1920s bar: “To have a slight murder mystery, and to have it set in a nightclub opens it up to different options, and sexy kinds of motives came through in the work.”
Since Dancenorth last performed a Powerhouse season (of Underground, in 2008), the company has premiered a new work in their Townsville base called Nowhere Fast, choreographed by Ross McCormack, toured three works (including Nightcafe) in two national tours and performed at Powerhouse as part of this year’s Queensland Music Festival.
The company has also appointed a new Artistic Director, New Zealand dancer Raewyn Hill, to succeed outgoing Director Webber. “Raewyn starts creating work at the beginning of next year,” explains Ryan. “Her style has some similarities [to Webber’s]… it’s still very physical and there’s quite an emphasis on technique.” Ryan continues: “Changing makes everyone re-evaluate things and, hopefully, also challenges audiences, too. It’s an exciting time, and Raewyn has an exciting artistic voice, so we’re all very excited to see what will develop.”
NIGHTCAFE plays at the Brisbane Powerhouse Theatre from Nov 4 – 6. For tickets phone 3358 8600 or visit www.brisbanepowerhouse.org.
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