Australian Dance Party to celebrate Dairy Road’s LESS Pavilion with a new performance
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A monolithic structure has emerged in Fyshwick’s Dairy Road.
Comprised of sky-high concrete columns—36 in total—the sculpture is accessed by a sweeping ramp, encouraging exploration of the space through sight and touch and offering views across the Dairy Road precinct.
This new sculpture, LESS Pavilion, and its artistic implications will be explored in a new dance performance, LESS, as Canberra’s own award-winning dance company, Australian Dance Party (ADP) holds its first post-lockdown event next month.
Australian Dance Party’s Party Leader Alison Plevey, explains that, as a site-specific dance company that creates work inspired by natural and built environments, LESS Pavilion was an obvious choice for a performance space.
“LESS is a performance that has been created from the place, it is an incredible and sort of odd sculpture that reminds us of the power of our imagination and our connection with the built and natural environment.”
As part of the Enlighten After Dark program and The BOLD Festival, the short evening performances, held across 4-12 March, will be accompanied by live music from local musicians and will reflect on the open-ended nature of the sculpture.
Commissioned by Molonglo Group from Chilean architects Pezo von Ellrichshausen, the LESS Pavilion pays homage to Canberra’s brutalist architectural roots as well as the feel of ancient temples and structures.
While the Pavilion has no defined “purpose” Alison explains its role as a space in Dairy Road for people to explore, pause and reflect within has informed ADP’s performance.
“The wonderful dancers and the musicians have brought to life this space through their own experiences of being there with it, searching for meaning yet also allowing the space to be, to wash over us in the creative process,” she says.
“We have worked with questions of, ‘Who are we in this space?’ and ‘What could this space be?’ to shape the choreography and images we have been exploring.”
“Following the lockdown in the second half of 2021, and omicron continuing to affect events and the performing arts sector immensely, it is a wonderful privilege and joy to have this opportunity to create and perform for audiences. In a way, we hope this piece is an invitation to contemplate and reflect on this time and look forward to more positive futures.”
In creating LESS, Alison worked in collaboration with dancers Ryan Stone, Ashlee Bye, Levente Szabo, Jake Silvestro and Patricia Hayes-Cavanagh, accompanied by musicians Alex Voorhoeve and John Mackey.
The illuminated outdoor dance and music performance on the evocative architectural sculpture will see ADP will awaken the space with reverent contemplation and playful imagination as they bring it to life.
THE ESSENTIALS
What: LESS by Australian Dance Party
When: Various dates and times across 4-12 March
Where: LESS Pavilion, Dairy Road, Fyshwick. Click for Google Maps Pin.
Tickets: events.humanitix.com/less
Photography: Lorna Sim
