(image by Ashley du Prazer)
Warning note for this review - Choreography is not really my language - I'm much more at home in standard narrative theatre, so this isn't going to be dealing with the depts of the choreographic work teh cast are doing so much as a general impression of how the show works as an entertainment.
"Awkward" is a dance piece about a bunch of young people attending a party, from their arrival to their drifting away, showing the challenges of those early stages of social interaction, and the early stages of exposure to lust, communal dancing, and the effects of alcohol. There's some great demonstrations here - in particular, there's a solo section where a performer takes unclear dancing instructions in all kinds of wrong ways, leaping around in stunning jerky perfection, and a later trio where one girl leaps all over a guy who's very clearly interested in another girl across the floor from him - the simultaneous disengagement-and-sought-engaement is fascinating to watch.
There are moments when focus wanders a bit - the arrival, unfortunately, is one of those, with seven separate performers trying to establish their personalities, it does become a little bit difficult to know who to look at and who to discover - and some of the narrative and characterisation becomes a bit arbitrary - there's a fight near the end which is choreographically great but doesn't reflect the characterisations established for the two characters who are fighting, and it doesn't come across as particularly motivated by anything more than the desire to choreograph a fight.
Director/Choreographer Cada McCarthy has a good concept and a good line up of songs and choreographic moments, but focus and narrative could definitely be tighter. Her seven performers, Jordan Bretherton, Cassidy Clarke, Alexandra Ford, Nicola Ford, Romain Hassanin, Remy Rochester, and Anna McCulla, are game and skilled performers, willing to move around both levels of the set and over and around the couches and bar-benches that make up the set with remarkable agility. The music selections are a great set of party songs, from Nikki French's dance cover of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" (sung along to by one of the cast) to Sia's "Chandalier" and a wrap up with the Velvet Underground's "All Tomorrow's Parties".
This was an enteratining night out and it'd be worth seeing this team again on something a little tighter with a stronger narrative thread.
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