Thursday, July 16, 2015

L



Elizabeth Cameron Dalman and Mirramu Dance Company
Q Theatre, Queanbeyan 15 July 2015

Review by Len Power






L – the Roman Numeral for ‘50’ – is an appropriate title for this show which celebrates Elizabeth Cameron Dalman’s 50 years of professional contemporary dance in Australia.

Born in Adelaide, Elizabeth Cameron Dalman studied and danced in Europe, London and the USA.  She founded the Australian Dance Theatre in 1965 and was its artistic director for 10 years.  She was awarded a Medal Of The Order Of Australia (an OAM) in 1995 for her contribution to contemporary dance in Australia and is currently Director of the Mirramu Creative Arts Centre at Lake George.  And at age 81, she is still dancing!

‘L’ is a program that links various works of the past 50 years associated with Elizabeth Cameron Dalman with new works by her and her current company.  The collection gives a sense of time passing and looking back at life’s experiences and forward, courageously, to the end of life.  It’s wistful and nostalgic with good accompanying choices of music and flashes of humour here and there.

The company of seven dancers performs the program very well.  Highlights were ‘Sapling’, a dance about a young tree bursting with life, choreographed and performed beautifully by Vivienne Rogis; ‘Memories’, an excerpt from ‘Homage To Botticelli’, from a 1969 Australian Dance Theatre program, by Elizabeth Cameron Dalman; the haunting ‘Excerpt from 1972’s Limousine for Janis’, choreographed by Eleo Pomare to music by Janis Joplin and Yoko Ono and ‘Tree Spirit’, an adaptation of choreography of Albert David, performed by Elizabeth Cameron Dalman and Hans David Ahwang.  This young dancer gave an especially magnetic performance in this sequence.

The Company - from left: Hans David Ahwang, Amanda Tutalo, Vivienne Rogis, Mark Lavery, Miranda Wheen, Janine Proost, Elizabeth Cameron Dalman OAM (Photograph by Barbie Robinson)

Lighting by Rodney Bates was excellent as were the costumes by Sharon Rasker.

This was a memorable evening of dance by an accomplished company.  Elizabeth Cameron Dalman is, without a doubt, a living legend.
 

Len Power’s reviews are also broadcast in the ‘Artcetera’ program on Artsound FM 92.7 on Saturdays from 9am.