The Choreographer Speaks
Lucy Guerin tells us what makes her latest creation tick
Flux Job was created during a global pandemic, and while it’s not a work ‘about’ the last two years it’s certainly one that gives audiences space to bring their own experience to bear.
“My hope is that it will be a work through which the audience can reflect on their experience and make sense of it in their own lives,” says choreographer Lucy Guerin.
“The pandemic is an interesting time for a choreographer. Awareness of space, one of the core considerations of our art form, is not something most people would think about too much in ordinary times but the restrictions of COVID have brought this aspect of our world into sharp relief. The moving towards and away from each other, the potential danger of proximity, the awkwardness of physical greetings, asking permission and setting boundaries have charged the space around us and filled it with significance, doubt and anticipation. This highlighting of space gives me as a choreographer an immediate connection with the audience as we navigate this now visible aspect of our relationship with others.”
Though it’s not unknown for contemporary dance to include the odd spoken word, Flux Job includes entire sequences of dialogue, with acclaimed theatre director Adena Jacobs collaborating as dramaturge. Guerin says that the ways in which speech and movement enable or obstruct particular kinds of communication came into focus. “Our rehearsals were cancelled multiple times and during one of these periods we spent time on Zoom talking and reflecting on the days and months and how our lives had changed. This became the script for the piece and carries the unnatural speech rhythms of Zoom. The switch into text can be jarring, or perhaps a relief, but it serves to move us into a different mode of understanding and communicates in a very different way. This perceptive shift feels connected for me to the experience of this strange time as we moved from our internal to external worlds. “
Isolation and disrupted communication have had effects we’re still discovering, and Flux Job is proof that art can be a crucial way of making sense of the unimaginable. “Our worlds have grown smaller and more mundane as the spectre of this huge, extraordinary event has loomed ever closer,” says Guerin. “It is this incomprehensible gap between tragedy and the everyday which lies at the heart of Flux Job; how in the instant of great loss, the quotidian rhythm ticks on without skipping a beat.”
Flux Job premieres at Arts House on 16 March 2022. Tickets can be purchased here.
Wed 16 – Sun 20 Mar, 2022
AUSLAN Interpreted Performance Thu 17 Mar
GA $20 / BLAKTIX $10
Image: Gregory Lorenzutti
