Ben Apfelbaum

SYDNEY FESTIVAL : YUNG LUNG @ CARRIAGEWORKS

Yung Lung Pic Jacquie Manning

The Sydney Festival as part of its aims must showcase bold and innovative performances and with Yung Lung at Carriageworks it has admirably fulfilled this obligation. 

Coming to this work of experimental dance is like trying to discern the meaning and intention of an abstract piece of art.

For example I have seen a description of this work in a publicity blurb and I drew a totally different conclusion as to its meaning from that of the blurb. 

The set up was a very large cube with an Uluru type mound in the centre of the room, surrounded from above by monitor screens. The audience is free to move around and view the performance from any angle it wishes, so long as it stays outside the narrowly defined performance space. 

YUNG LUNG  consists of a number of sonic and visual themes, the first one being an operatic chorus piece with the seven dancers striking poses with enigmatic gestures highlighted by the expressive lighting. This lulled us into a false sense of security as the rest of the performance was very loud and prophetic.

Whilst the dancers writhed on stage and the monitors throbbed with myriads of images flashed at very high speeds, we found ourselves in a very discordant techno rave. Eventually the techno drum beat became almost hypnotic and one found oneself surrendering to the sensations, full of audio visual propulsion. The striking strobe effects would have shredded a vulnerable epileptic but heightened the frenzy of the dancers. 

The publicity blurb stated that the dancers were flinging themselves above and around Mount Olympus, I could clearly discern the giant heads of Karl Marx and Albert Einstein. It may well be that they were challenging and stomping on their views.

To enhance the bold lighting design and inline with the electro techno pulse, the dancers wielded neon tubes further sculpting their bodies with light and amplifying the rhythm.

We were given paper wristbands in case the violent visual and sonic assault on our senses was too much and in case one needed to gain some relief outside the theatre.

We stayed for the whole hour long performance and it also became clear that the dissonance of the sound and the jerking, almost zombie-like movements of the dancers, was the fact that we were in some kind of hell or were being immersed into some dystopian universe. It was extremely cathartic.

The piece was by the Chunky Move Contemporary Dance Company who are based in Melbourne and brought this world premiere production from Victoria.

The concept, direction and choreography was by Antony Hamilton; the set design  was by Callum Moreton; the composition/sound design was by the appropriately named Chiara Kickdrum. lighting design was by Bosco Shaw. Costume design was by P.A.M and the video content creation was by Kris Moyes 

Including the dancers there was a vast number of production team members who assisted in bringing this complex production to its fruition. 

Looking around at the engaged and absorbed audience, we were clearly the oldest people there. Nevertheless we thoroughly enjoyed our first electro-techno rave and would recommend that if you are broadminded and can tolerate very loud noise, you should hurry along to see something brilliant and completely original. 

The performance runs until the 23rd January and on Friday night 8.15-9.15pm, Saturday at 5pm and 9pm, Sunday 2pm and 7pm at Carriageworks.

 

Published by Ben Apfelbaum

My photography began when my father handed me the proverbial brownie box camera as a child. As cameras developed I went through Fujica and Olympus range finders graduating to my first single lens reflex camera, the Minolta SRT101, the latter being the greatest facilitator to my growth as a photographer. Digital photography has only added to this. I was a regular contributor to Camera Craft magazine (Australian Camera ) for over three years. During Australia’s Bicentennial year (1988) I made it a personal project to document the celebrations. This culminated in the creation of a book of my photos which was published in 1989. The book was called CELEBRATING AUSTRALIA and came with an accompanying calendar. My works have appeared in a number of publications including the coffee book entitled MY AUSTRALIA (1989), publisher Robertsbridge Severn. This book had a preface by the then Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. I was a co-photographer on a book entitled SYDNEY- DISCOVER THE CITY with text written by Robert Treborlang. Major Mitchell Press was the publisher. Also for two years I was the photographer for calendars celebrating Sydney’s multicultural communities. The two calendars were entitled MULTICULTURAL SYDNEY. My work appeared in a group exhibition held at Sydney’s Town Hall pertaining to the diversity of life in South America to raise money for orphanages there. I have over one hundred photos stored in the New South Wales State Library archive. I had a solo exhibition held in 2007 entitled Ben’s Lens at the Sydney Jewish Museum which celebrated the vibrancy of the Sydney Jewish community. Some of these photos are on the Museum’s permanent display. I have exhibited internationally firstly at the Spruill Gallery in Atlanta Georgia, United States, and in an exhibition entitled Kosher and Co at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Currently I am a regular contributor to J-Wire and this esteemed publication. To celebrate the opening of a permanent Photography Gallery, the State Library of New South Wales selected 400 shots from its archive of over 2,000,000 images to display in the new gallery. An image of mine was plucked out of the multi million photo archive to be part of the inaugural exhibition.