Here We Are Amongst You, Rawcus, REVIEW, 29 June 2022, The Age ***1/2

Devised and performed by Rawcus Ensemble

At Arts House, Queensberry St North Melbourne, until July 10, 2022

Reviewer: Kate Herbert 

 Stars:  ***1/2

This review was first published in The Age Arts online on Thur 30 June 2022 and then in print on (date TBC- Fri July 1?). 

Read the review in The Age online here: Here We Are Amongst You

Prue Stevenson with Rawcus Ensemble in Here We Are Amongst You. Credit:Sarah Walker

“For the next hour, you don’t have to do anything. We’ve got it.” This gentle introduction to Here We Are Amongst You, Kate Sulan’s final work with Rawcus, sets the audience at ease. There is a palpable sense of release and an audible sigh from the 50 people anticipating this intimate, almost meditative performance.

The audience sits in a single row of chairs arranged in a circle around the empty, central performance space. This is non-narrative, physical performance with a difference, devised and performed by an ensemble of idiosyncratic artists “with diverse minds, bodies and imaginations”. You need to watch this work with your heart as well as your mind and eyes.

The playful, exhilarating movement ebbs and flows: running, walking, turning, passing, veering, grouping, separating, slowing and speeding up to keep flowing without colliding. We feel the whoosh of air as runners whisk past, rushing from the centre past the audience to dart around behind the chairs. When they eventually stand still behind us, we hear their heavy breathing from the exertion.

13 individuals move as a group until one peels off and is left alone to perform a short movement piece until the group returns to flow around the soloist who melds into the ensemble. The process repeats.

Moving to an urgent, pulsating beat (Jethro Woodward) that is felt through the floor, they engage and repel each other, contacting and detaching, making eye contact then breaking their gaze or separating physically. In a fluid transition, performers disappear and return wearing more and more outlandish clothing: layers of lamé, vivid jackets, frilly skirts and, finally, a series of fabulously frothy, white gowns (Emily Barrie).

Slowly, each enters carrying jewel-coloured fabric and clothing that they drape carefully on the floor, starting in the centre, until the entire surface is swathed in a patchwork of bold colour all the way to the toes of the audience.

As the simple but dramatic lighting (Richard Vabre) dims, the sound transforms from dance beat to a tinkling tune while one performer revolves like a music-box ballerina. Meanwhile, in the near-dark, the ensemble slithers and slides piles of fabric across the floor, off-stage.

“Where were you born?” one asks the others in the final minutes. Then, the performer who introduced the show tells us it is almost the end, there will be a bow and some clapping – probably. But we don’t have to rush. So nobody does. We all sit and enjoy the warm glow after the applause. It is over but we feel happy to stay.  

Reviewed by Kate Herbert

Rawcus Ensemble_Here We Are Amongst You_photo Sarah Walker

Ensemble

Clement (Clem) Baade

Joshua Lynzaat

Paul Matley

Harriet Devlin-Dunbar

Michael Buxton

Rachel Edward

Nilgun Guven

Prue Stevenson

Ryan New

Danielle von der Borch

Mike Mc Evoy

Kerryn Poke

Louise Riisik 

 

Creative Team

Director – Kate Sulan

Designer –Emily Barrie

Composer/Sound Designer– Jethro Woodward

Lighting – Richard Vabre

Co-devisor/Dramaturg– Ingrid Voorendt

Joshua Lynzaat_Rawcus_Here We Are Amongst You_photo Sarah Walker

Ryan New and Danielle von der Borch in Rawcus_Here We Are Amongst You_photo Sarah Walker