Arts / Dance to hustle and weave at Portrait Gallery

Alison Plevey, photo Lorna Sim

CHOREOGRAPHER Alison Plevey is all go. Hot on the heels of Plevey’s announcement yesterday (August 31), saying she will be the acting artistic director at QL2 Dance while Ruth Osborne is taking up a Churchill Fellowship in the UK, comes news of “Weave hustle and halt“, a work newly commissioned from her Australian Dance Party by the National Portrait Gallery.

Like the Canberra Symphony Orchestra’s “Forgotten” concert last night, the new work will relate to the gallery’s current exhibition, “Dempsey’s People: British Street Portraits” exhibition and is said to be a piece “reflecting the rhythms of the street”.

The dancers will be accompanied by two members of the CSO, violinist Tim Wickham and cellist Alex Voorhoeve, doing a little “street busking”.

Dance party in action. Photo Lorna Sim

Plevey says: “We all have our own rhythm on the street… I was captured by the postures and movements of the quirky subjects of this historically significant exhibition…”

“In the creative process we considered who these people are, what is their story? In the 1820s and today, we all have street choreographies, duets and interactions,”
she says.

“The performance reflects the patterns, trajectories and changing behaviour of people moving in our streets.”

The 15-minute contemporary work will be performed by Canberra dancers, including Philip Piggin, Jane Ingall, Alison Plevey, Olivia Fyfe, Ursula Taylor, Eve Buckmaster, Natsuko Yonezawa, Caspar Ilschner and Milly Vanzwol.

“Weave hustle and halt“, outside the NPG in the paved corridor leading down to King Edward Terrace, 11.15am, 12pm and 1pm, Saturday, September 2, and 12pm and 1pm, Saturday, September 9. Free event. No bookings required.