This captivating double bill, part of THAT'S TWO, THANK YOU at Parramatta Riverside Theatres, features choreographers Lucky Lartey and Daniel Navarro Lorenzo delivering works that resonate with cultural defiance and environmental meditation. Though vastly different in theme and execution, these performances share a profound contemplation of loss, identity, and reclamation in contemporary society.
Lartey's Exoticism opens with a fearless examination of cultural objectification and diverse masculinity. The Ghanaian-Australian dance artist, known for blending West African movement traditions with contemporary dance, creates an experience that challenges any audience preconception. Alongside the talented and rhythmic Vincent Garcia, Lartey navigates the complex terrain of being exoticised while simultaneously reclaiming personal agency. The choreographic dialogue between the two performers adds layers of nuance to the exploration of cultural identity, eventually creating a singular entity by the close of the final coda.
Dramaturg Martin Del Amo's influence is evident in the piece's thoughtful structure. The choreography deliberately subverts expectations, beginning with movements that might satisfy Western notions of "African dance" before deliberately fracturing and reconstructing them. Through this deconstruction, Lartey creates something genuinely authentic – not an authenticity defined by cultural stereotypes, but one forged through lived experience.
Particularly striking is the use of rhythm and voice, incorporating recorded word elements. These moments might create uncomfortable but necessary reflections on how cultural diversity has been commodified in Australian arts. But rather than offering easy answers, Exoticism boldly questions who benefits from cultural representation and who pays the price.
The second half of the double bill shifts dramatically with Navarro Lorenzo's Orígenes, a haunting environmental elegy, in collaboration with AUSTI Dance and Physical Theatre. Likely set in a not-too unrelatable future where natural life has vanished, the Spanish choreographer creates a world both familiar and alien.
Along with Navarro Lorenzo, performer Madeleine Backen brings extraordinary emotional depth to the ensemble work. Her various solo sequences, perhaps appearing to manifest desperate attempts to recall the sensation of rainfall on skin, or the scent of a fresh breeze, become emotional centrepieces of the production.
But Orígenes is not a mere indulgence of simple environmental messaging. Instead, it creates a space of mourning and memory, a representational attempt to recreate connections to a natural world that's now irretrievably lost.
Together, both these works create a compelling dialogue about resistance and remembrance. Lartey's piece demands that we confront how cultural identities are consumed and distorted, while Navarro Lorenzo's work asks us to consider what remains when our connection to nature is diminished.
This double bill showcases artists who use movement to wrestle with urgent social questions. Neither work offers any comfortable resolution, but both provide experiences that linger in the consciousness, a testament to dance's unique power to embody complex ideas through the universal language of the body.
WHERE: Parramatta Riverside Theatres as part of THATS`S TWO, THANK YOU Dance Festival.
WHEN: Until 5 April 2025
TICKETS and DETAILS: https://riversideparramatta.com.au/whats-on/twobytwo/
FESTIVAL PRODUCER: FORM Dance Projects
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