Review: ADELAIDE FESTIVAL 2016: BODY OF WORK Is A Multimedia Masterpiece

Reviewed by Matthew John Plummer, Thursday 10th March 2016

Body Of Work, by Atlanta Eke, winner of the inaugural Keir Choreographic Award in 2014, was expanded to a full length work in 2015 and is now staged in the Space Theatre in Adelaide's Festival Centre, presented by Vitalstatistix for the Adelaide Festival.

Using very effective multi media equipment and choreographic stage craft skills, Atlanta has created an amazing meeting point of technology and dance, creating effects with projection of looped recordings captured live on stage, and demonstrating an innate awareness of how her movements connect with the media that she has chosen. The method she employs expands the performance with what is almost another dimension, for movement to be delivered adding layers of moving images one at a time, like looking through a time machine into the moments that just recently occurred on stage. Simple, yet extremely clever, and obviously well practiced to have such great timing and precision as the movement is assembled and layered on the screen. Eke moves the camera, the screen, herself, and various props around the space, expertly combining everything in such a way as to seem almost like magic.

The video projection design is by Hana Miller and Jacob Perkins, from Ready Steady Studio, music composition by Daniel Jenatsch, and the lighting design by Matthew Adey. All these aspects come together to deliver a product that sends the audience to a new place, devised by Atlanta Eke, a surreal place, a doorway to the mind of a new, talented maker and performer. Adelaide and the world can expect to see more very soon from Atlanta Eke with Vitalstatistix hosting a residency later in 2016 to create new work. That is something for everyone to look forward to.

Watch the preview below.

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