Dance Feast
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Darwin Civic Park, Darwin City
October 2, 1988
This meal and dance performance consisted of five groups combining to make a feast of dance: A children’s group, two youth groups, an adults group and an older adults group. The children and adults groups already existed as Dance Mob classes taken by Sarah Calver. The performance project swelled the numbers in each group. The older adults group was initiated through this project, and has continued on with classes and performances, (called the Grey Panthers since 1993.)
The age range of the performers was between 4 and 74 and was a special element of Dance Feast. Each group worked with a visual element – ‘a wall’ which was particular to their stage of life: The children had a wall of water, the youth a wall of sound, adults had a wall of light, while the older adults had a wall of flowers. The whole performance celebrated the particular energy of each stage of life and the continuity and abundance of the whole cycle.
Dance Feast was an evening length performance that combined a meal and social dancing to a local band (Loose Wheels). All took place on the lawns of Civic Park, Darwin City. Dance Feast was part of the Dance on Darwin Project.
Creative Personnel
Sarah Calver, Tim Newth, Maggi Phillips, Beth Shelton
Performers
Darwin Dance Mob (Kids)
Sonya McDermott, Kiarna Adams, Kellsey Ansell, Cara Raskin, Adam Roth, David Smith, Amber Goodfellow
Darwin Dance Mob (Youth)
Celina Mckean, Joanna Cain, Mary-Anna Chevalier, Krista Morgan, Chris Madden, Sam Lant, Amanda Pine, Ricky Barnes, Evelyn Temple, Amy Brown, Donna Bessley, Stephanie Quinn, Szabina Horvath
Darwin Dance Mob (Adult)
Kerry Laizans, Janice Tidmarsh, Leanne Gunnulson, John Etty, Judith Ventic, Corolyn Ford, Rachel Long, David Lapsely, Scott Trenwith (Music), Wendy Harvey, Fiona Seccombe, Victoria Healy, Beth Shelton, Tim Newth, Rai Farfarniuk, Stephanie Francis, Sarah Calver, Maggi Phillips
Darwin Dance Mob (Older Adults - Grey Panthers)
Lendell Fyson, Willis Gerrig, Glad Morris, Gail Morris, Wendy James, Jocelyn Perkins, Marie Porter, Joy Soullier, Elsie Thompson, Pat Townsend, Margaret Wight.
The Star Piquettes (singing group)
Richenda Bridge, Jane Carpenter, Marianne Piercy, Rebecca Riggs
The Loose Wheels Band
Alistair Wyvill, Harry Dawson, Tom Marinucci, Rebecca Riggs, Jane Carpenter, Tanya Heaslip, Rowan Saice.
Scenario
Wall of Water (Kids)
Choreography: Sarah Calver and Group
Music: Splish Splash by Doctor John
Wall of Sound (Youth)
Choreography: Maggi Phillips and Group
Music: Cry Wolf by Mark Isham, The Sound of Business by David Byrne
Wall of Light (Adults)
Choreography; Beth Shelton and Group
Music: Composed and performed by Scott Trenwith.
Wall of Flowers (Older Adults)
Choreography: Beth Shelton and group.
Music: Honey Suckle Rose by Fats Waller and performed by the Star Piquettes, Toy Waltz by Charles Chaplin, Apple Blossom Time by Neville Sleeson and performed by the Star Piquettes and the group.
1988
Dance Development Office: Sarah Calver
[Under Brown’s Mart Community Arts – Executive Officer Ken Conway]
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Artists Notes
In making this dance we began with the idea of walls. Elemental walls: walls to push over, jump on, pass through. Unexpected walls, walls of bodies. A wall for each group of dancers, somehow characteristic of their particular stage of life. The walls became points of growth to move through as one dance flows into another and the dance became a celebration of the energy, rhythm and reason of the cycle of life.