2002: The Dancing Orchestra by Steven Bailey

The Dancing Orchestra.  Script and music by Steven Bailey.  The Acting Company at Hawk Theatre, Narrabundah College, July 23-27.

    "If we hold onto the feeling, maybe we'll find our way out of the darkness" the young people said, in this quite fascinating tone poem.  It brought to mind certain oft seen political faces, elected supposedly to represent the people: Yes, indeed - where have all the feelings gone? 

    Pragmatism is anathema to these recent and current students of Narrabundah College.  The Acting Company more usually consists of ex-college students, like Steven Bailey, now at the School of Music.  This time, though, it was very appropriate to have an even mix, giving the chance for the younger people to explore their need to understand the nature of the darkness and the light in a theatrical way conceived by someone just a year or two older.  Rather than the more usual "workshop taken to performance level", with the inevitable surging group movement around stand-out figures seeking to tell a tale of conflict of good and evil, Bailey has produced an interesting philosophical study  extending into how, or whether, art itself - in music, poetry and dance - resolves the apparent conflict.

    A small very well-disciplined ensemble of piano, keyboard, percussion and strings sometimes led and sometimes accompanied the spoken modern verse representing a range of characters expressing contrasting views of reality, while two dancers commented on the action, and sometimes took the lead, using imagery in movement.  The effect is modernist without being too post-modern: although there is no standard plot, there is a feeling of a quest reaching a conclusion as the three artistic elements blend together.

    The key question is, "What does 'now' sound like?"  It is "soft and beautiful" for the romantic young man.  For the more clinically observant young woman, sitting by a stream, the conclusion is gradually reached that she sees both the stillness of her reflection and the movement of the water at the same time: this is her 'now'.  There is, too, a self-serving character who cynically observes these mystical flounderings, yet cannot herself escape the need to search for understanding.

    I hope Steven Bailey goes on to greater art: surely he will never encage people in razor wire.  He's made a good beginning in The Dancing Orchestra.

© Frank McKone, Canberra