Deakin student redefining dance at the Melbourne Fringe Festival

An old ‘red rattler’ train carriage and the iconic Abbotsford Convent are the unlikely settings for a unique Melbourne Fringe Festival performance that challenges our image of ‘a dancer’.

Dance Interrogations is a creation by Dianne Reid, one of Melbourne’s foremost improviser and screen/dance artists, and Melinda (Mel) Smith, a visual artist, writer and dancer living with cerebral palsy.

Dianne and Mel first met five years ago when Dianne was asked to choreograph a play with Mel and three other dancers with disabilities. Since then, the pair has performed in India in 2011 and 2012, Sweden in 2012, and at the Melbourne Fringe Festival in 2014.  

Their extraordinary bond is at the heart of Dance Interrogations, a two-part performance which forms a key part of Dianne’s PhD studies at Deakin University where she is exploring site-specific live improvisation and screendance.

Dianne explained that the performance encourages audience members to re-think their notions of both dance and disability.

“I think it’s so important to bring people closer to different bodies – it’s so inspirational to see ‘other’ bodies. When you see something up close, it moves from being an item or an object to a person,” Dianne said.

“What I think the show really expresses is a wanting for people to get back in touch with their bodies.

“Hopefully, we can expand people’s ideas of what a dancer is and what they look like.”

For wheelchair user Mel, dancing with Dianne has improved not only her physical strength – she can now stand for small amounts of time and has just started yoga – but also her capacity for communication.

“Over the past years that we’ve been working together, I’ve noticed both an increase in strength and control and a releasing of muscular tension. This suggests that Mel’s neural pathways are starting to re-pattern, which is very exciting,” Dianne said.

Dance Interrogations requires strength and control in equal measures from both dancers as they move together and rely on each other to create a unique, free-flowing performance.

“It’s humbling but also really opening up a different kind of virtuosity in my own dancing,” Dianne said.

“Our bodies are different but we’re meeting in the middle. Mel tends to spasm if she moves too quickly so we’ve learned to physically support each other through steady, free-ranging movements.”

Professor Matthew Allen, Head of School, Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University, congratulated Dianne and Mel on their inclusion in this year’s Melbourne Fringe Festival.

“Our students are known for their innovative, diverse and cutting edge works which tell stories about the world in many different ways,” Professor Allen said.

“Dance Interrogations continues this tradition and confirms the vital role of dance in our society, exploring boundaries, challenging our assumptions, and showing us new possibilities.

“It is the reason that Deakin is known internationally for its innovative dance, movement and technology teaching and research, led by the Deakin Motion.Lab.“

Dance Interrogations begins with Dianne performing solo in the ‘red rattler’ train carriage at CERES Park in Brunswick East in the early afternoon. The decommissioned and disused train represents the march of time with Dianne’s body a vintage carriage and she but a passenger on its rattling journey.

Dianne and the audience then regroup at Abbotsford Convent at twilight, where Mel joins the performance and incorporates her wheelchair and speech output device. Usually known for its markets, art gallery, and bakery, this is the first time the Abbotsford Convent will host a dance performance.    

Dianne draws the audience into the frame of the action by using locations reminiscent of film sets and having a range of projected images accompany the dancers and interact with their bodies.

This interaction allows Dianne to interrogate the possibilities for screendance to engage with performers’ bodies and audience members and this, in turn, exposes possibilities for embodied experiences for creating and watching live performance. 

In addition, a deliberate lack of seating at both venues encourages audience members to change their proximity to the action and gain differing perspectives. 

Dance Interrogations (a diptych)

Dates:  23, 24 & 25 September and 1, 2 & 3 October
Locations:  Synergy Gallery, Red Train at Ceres, corner Roberts St and Stewart St, Brunswick East and Mural Hall at Abbotsford Convent, 1 St Heliers St., Abbotsford
Times:  4pm (first act at Synergy Gallery) and 7pm (second act at Mural Hall)
Cost:  $15 adult, $10 concession
Tickets:  Via the Melbourne Fringe Festival