Clan

Bangarra Dance Theatre

Hardcover, 176 pages

en-Latn-AU language

Published Jan. 11, 2013 by Allen & Unwin.

ISBN:
9781743314135

View on OpenLibrary

3 stars (1 review)

Clan explores the world of Bangarra Dance Theatre and the extraordinary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dancers who are at the heart and soul of this creative community.

Suspended in the mystical moment where time and space stand still, Clan is a photographic story of cultural resilience that celebrates Bangarra’s twenty‐fifth anniversary.

Renowned dance photographer Greg Barrett, in collaboration with Bangarra’s Artistic Director Stephen Page, has brilliantly captured more than 150 striking images — part physical, part spiritual.

As a Clan, Bangarra’s artists bring energy and imagination to the continuing practice of tens of thousands of years of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture.

The land shapes the people, the people shape the language, the language shapes the song, the song shapes the dance, and the spirit flows through it all.

1 edition

mere flex

3 stars

[12 Jan 2023]

Dancers communicate so profoundly with the mere flex of a foot or hand, a shift of focus, the roll of a head, the transfer of weight within their body.

⸻ Stephen Page, opening page

Yet considering all that is going on in the images which fill almost the entire book, Barrett’s photography (as paired with Page’s art direction?) tends to be rather lifeless. Murky, flat, depleted of momentum, almost clinical, for all the heavy‐ink, gloss and phenomenal energies gone in.

I couldn’t help but contrast the pronounced underwhelm at a first glance through 21st century, prestige project Clan with my memory of alternately squint‐goggling at a juddery, blurred few‐second clip of anthropologist–choreographer Pearl Primus’ 1950 solo dance Spirituals, rolled and buoyed and awash with awe, utterly.

Like [Isadora] Duncan, [Primus] danced with — not against — gravity, but in her case the gesture tied …

Subjects

  • Performing arts
  • Dance