Monday, March 30th, 2009

"roadkill"

I had the pleasure of seeing "roadkill" on Saturday night at PICA. It's a stunning new contemporary dance / phsyical theatre piece by Dancenorth's Gavin Webber, Sarah-Jayne Howard and Grayson Millward. Based on urban myths and paranoia surrounding the idea of being broken down in the remote outback, the performance takes place on a stage with an actual car and a phone booth. The car doesn't move, but is very much a member of the cast as it struggles to start, provides the heart of the performance's lighting, and is brought to life by the relative movement of the performers, creating the illusion of the car speeding through the night, swerving, crashing violently, etc.

It was a really effective piece, very dark and ominous, at times quite scary. The movement was really original and effective, using dance and human motion to recreate cinematic devices familiar from action and horror films. Pretty amazing piece of work.