Dance / “I liked it…but I didn’t know what the f#! it was about”, Joel Bray Dance. At Courtyard Studio until August 1. Reviewed by SAMARA PURNELL.

JOEL Bray wants to demystify contemporary dance for his audience. So often “I liked it…but I didn’t know what the f#! it was about” is muttered after modern dance shows that he decided to address it head-on. Bray makes a cabaret-style show out of the topic, whilst also taking the mickey out of the seriousness with which artists and performances take these days. 

Bray, in a sparkly black jacket, welcomed his audience to their tables, to the background music of Canberran musician, Pheno, all the while spruiking the bar (a drink upon arrival was included).

Dancer and choreographer Bray says he specialises in “participatory, immersive dance experiences” and not to worry if that sounds like a big “what the…” He will introduce us to the “Gospel of contemporary dance.”

“I liked it…but I didn’t know what the f#! it was about” was presented as a pub-trivia night, with sports paraphernalia adorning the theatre, including the omnipresent pub dartboard. Throughout the show, questions were haphazardly thrown out by Bray and written down (sometimes called out, given the directions were not made clear) by the audience, all in the name of winning the elusive meat tray. But, being a Melbournian, Bray’s tray was vegan.

The show involved large amounts of volunteer audience participation, with very entertaining results. The question “What does contemporary dance look like?” Was met with a barrage of amusing answers: “Purposeful walking…“ had everyone laughing in recognition.

Part pub quiz, part audience participation, part informative, “I liked it…but” was an eclectic mix telling of Bray’s initial foray into dance, from a student “activist” in Bathurst, a short history of modern dance and a choreography segment where participants learnt and performed some of the sillier movements, by their colloquial names, that can be seen in modern dance. Pheno accompanied this with a version of Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time”, a surprising choice given that a lot of modern dance is performed to original, “challenging” or discordant scores, but this choice kept the audience onside. A riotous dance-charades provided many laughs.

Pheno and Bray interacted, improvised and promoted each other throughout the performance. Pheno’s synth sounds, looping and voice provided an unobtrusive soundscape for Bray to work to, as well, she performed an original song “There are Voices Out There”, about her experience of being pregnant.

The lighting and narrative volume was not always optimal. Bray was sometimes unable to be easily seen when on the floor, given the seating arrangements. The small raised stage was not utilised for much of the show.

Bray was going for comedy in his costume reveals. Given that much of contemporary dance is performed in flesh-coloured underwear, there was scope to use that idea instead.

As humans, the desire to find meaning, a narrative or class something as right or wrong drives so much of the theatre-going experience. Bray says contemporary dance is simply “The dance that’s happening now”, but that understanding how the choreography is made and the process of creating the work can help to explain the final product. To demonstrate, he reverse-engineered his creative process on a recent piece, which began as experimenting with 3D shapes, moving one body part at a time and the Sisyphean struggle, which was finally presented as a clown-sailor character, where the vocabulary of movement could clearly be seen.

Given that the audience is not usually privy to the creative process, unless extensive program notes are presented, did “I liked it…but” enlighten the audience? To a degree. But it did go some way to illuminate emotional responses and validate that you don’t need to “know” to have a response.

Bray was thrilled to be back in front of a live audience and said so often it’s “preaching to the choir” in contemporary performances. He definitely was tonight, but if an audience buys in, it’s a very casual, riotous, quick-paced night of fun that would benefit from tighter organisation and polish.

The perennial questions of “What makes dance and what is it all about” will linger, and somewhere, there is a small group of women pondering this over a vegan meat-tray…