Last Work, Batsheva Dance Company, State Theatre, Melbourne Festival, Saturday October 17th 2015

Last Work, Batsheva Dance Company, State Theatre, Melbourne Festival, Saturday October 17th 2015

"Last Work" was choreographed by the artistic director of Batsheva Dance Company, Ohad Naharin.  They performed at the State Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne as part of the Melbourne Festival.

For those new to my blog I write about the holistic experience of attending the theatre.  So if you want a re-telling of the story please refer to the links for further information or for further insights.  Note, that I may provide different links for repeated main words or phrases.

Batsheva Dance Company is an iconic dance company that I have now seen about six times.  "Last Work" did not disappoint.

A woman wearing a long blue dress runs on the spot upstage right on a treadmill for the duration of the dance work.  This treadmill is on the narrow raised step upstage which also hides costumes and props for the dancers.

A man is wrapping tape around a microphone as if the sounds are reaching different frequencies or listeners.  Another carries a white flag of surrender.

A third is a man seated with a red wrap around skirt and has his back to the audience.  His right arm is vigorously going up and down as if he could be masturbating.  There is an explosion of a celebratory pop streamers as if he has ejaculated.  This continues and finally he turns around for the reveal: he is polishing a gun.  The audience love how they have been tricked by this visually simple ruse.  He is a wanker in more ways than one: not only sexually but by his gun toting intimidating manner.

Our runner is given the white flag of surrender and continues to run.

The final sequence in "Last Work" has all but one dancer scattered across the stage.  A male dancer has been winding brown tape around a microphone on the narrow stage.  Now he pursues each dancer and winds the tape around each body in different patterns.  He then goes to the next dancer across the stage and continues to wind the tape around the new dancer's body.  He continues this crossing and criss-crossing and dodging tape to ensure that all 16 remaining dancers are wound up by his tape.  He then makes his mark on the runner in the blue dress.  The audience roar with laughter.

This image shows how connected everyone is: the six degrees of separation.  It is also the "Ripple Effect" and used in management courses.

Sadly I left it too long to add to my review and is a very scratchy.  There is a lot I have left out.  I was upset by the mobile phone behaviour of my young neighbours.

Overall I gave this a 7.5/10.