A retrospective drawn from ZEN ZEN ZO’s Butoh-inspired dance-theatre works, ZEITGEIST reflects upon the physical theatre company’s rich history as well as the pressing contemporary social issues of our time, as reviewed by SEANNA VAN HELTEN.

Since 1992 Brisbane-based physical theatre company Zen Zen Zo have been at the forefront of contemporary dance-theatre in Queensland, having established a cult following through annual programs of training, production, and performance. Founded by Lynne Bradley and Simon Woods, the company is certainly to be credited with introducing Brisbane to the Japanese dance-theatre form of Butoh, and they remain one of the few Australian companies regularly practicing this highly visceral, expressionistic style.

Zeitgeist, playing at the Old Museum, comprises nine dances, some new and some reprised works from Zen Zen Zo’s most successful Butoh productions. Each dance is individually striking but they are linked via topical motifs of social interaction. Director Lynne Bradley questions “how we as human beings are interacting with ourselves, each other, and the earth at this point in human history” – thus steeping this company sample-box in critical commentary of contemporary issues.

The opening piece, ‘Unleashed’ (from the 1996 production of the same name), explores the cyclical nature of human life: the twenty-one dancers begin as pulsating foetal buds, gradually unfurling to greet their fellow beings in a richly choreographed ensemble piece that sets the reflective tone of the succeeding eight dances.

Next, ‘The Waste Land’ deepens the production’s philosophical tone with sparse movement and a live rendition of Gary Jules’ Mad World, cleverly interspersed with fragments of T. S. Eliot’s modernist poem The Waste Land. The use of these adapted lyrics and live vocals amplifies the broken desolateness of the piece. Later contrasted with the materialist meaningless of ‘Sloth’ (from 2005’s Those With Lucifer, choreographed by Steven Mitchell Wright), in which the dancers mimic one another’s parade in high heels and rose-tinted glasses, both pieces critique a perceived spiritual sterility in our era.

Other pieces demonstrate well the raw energy of the Butoh-influenced style that Zen Zen Zo have made their trademark. Described by Bradley as “a dance of the senses”, Butoh aims to reveal the visceral core of the human body, obliterating its performers’ individual identities in favour of a universal, expressionistic canvas.

Butoh bodies are nude but for a small G-string and whitewash, and yet they are never vulnerable; rather, the performers’ physicality exposes a gut reaction in their audiences, who experience human bodies stripped of social conventions. In ‘Butoh Babies’, this theatrical ideology is illustrated by the embodiment of completely un-self-conscious infants, who bounce, gurgle, cry, and spit on stage. A later piece, ‘Envy’, accompanied by a live solo performance of ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow,’ explores the pain of bodily awareness when social conventions dominate the individual’s sense of worth.

 Zen Zen Zo are a company who never seem to stop producing new and original work. The yearly ‘In The Raw’ studio season (from which Zeitgeist was produced) prides itself on continual experimentation, promising fresh choreography and performance in non-traditional theatre spaces. This year (the first year Zen Zen Zo has received funding from Arts Queensland), the company has been reflective, so far producing a sequel production to Sub-Con Warrior (2006) and now Zeitgeist, their retrospective of  a critically-acclaimed career. That this production can proudly assert the appellation of Zeitgeist – meaning “the spirit (Geist) of our times (Zeit)” – is a testament to this company’s continual strive for avant-garde excellence and exploratory awareness of contemporary issues.

ZEN ZEN ZO’s ZEITGEIST plays at the Old Museum, Bowen Hills, until July 12. To book tickets phone 3252 5540. For further information visit www.zenzenzo.com

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