[2013148] Cor
Alexandra Knox @ Adelaide College of the Arts – Main Theatre
2:00pm, Sat 16 Mar 2013
After winning me over with last year’s Wyrd… with grace, Alexandra Knox is a name that gets immediately highlighted in the Fringe Guide; an early afternoon matinée seals the deal, and I end up nabbing a seat halfway up the seating bank in the ACA Main Theatre.
(Have I mentioned before how much I love the ACA Main Theatre as a dance venue? The steep raking of the seats mean that pretty much anyone above the second row has a glorious view of the wide open spaces of the stage. It’s lovely :)
The performance starts in the dark, with soft down-lights fading in and out, dotting the space; eventually, Rebecca Fletcher is picked out, and her movements drop into a heartbeat rhythm. Tae-li Andrew Haycroft enters the fray and, with red twine connected to Fletcher’s limbs, it’s almost as if she’s a marionette; human puppetry over, a more contemporary dance emerges: always fluid, always organic, always engaging.
Knox merely acts as choreographer for Cor, and it’s a compelling collection of pieces that she has assembled. Fletcher and Haycroft are wonderfully light in their movements, and their costumes are fantastic: with deep reds and browns, it’s almost as if Fletcher’s legs were exposing the flesh and muscle beneath the skin, and the flourishes provided by fabric drooping off the arms was hypnotic. So, too, was the lighting… and Tim Rodgers’ soundtrack, ranging from organic heartbeats to pounding industria (and back again), is also a treat.
Shifted from the XSpace into the Main Theatre at ACA, it’s hard to imagine the performance without the elevation that the Main Theatre provides; I really think it would’ve lost something with the audience at a lower level. But Cor proved to be a wonderful work of contemporary dance that always choreographically challenged this viewer… with lots of visual flourishes to keep the eyes entertained.
(148) Cor: wonderful flow and sync, coupled with gorgeous choreography, made this a treat. #ff2013 #ADLfringe
— Pete Muller (@festivalfreakAU) March 16, 2013