BWW Reviews: SHADOWLAND Is a Magical Journey to a World Beyond Sleep

Reviewed Wednesday 9th July 2014

Pilobolus Dance Theater have brought their sensational work, Shadowland, to tour Australia, and the opening night audience in Adelaide responded with so much cheering and applause that the beaming smiles on the faces of the performers, as they took their numerous bows, showed that their trip from America had been well worth while. The audience was captivated from start to finish as Pilobolus depicted the surreal journey of a sleeping girl as she dreams of crossing the divide between the real world and that of her shadow, and the bizarre events that happened to her there.

No doubt many of you have made simple hand shadows on the wall, such as birds, or rabbits, and perhaps even seen experts create some very clever shadow puppets, and you have possibly seen the shadow puppetry of Indonesia. As the old saying goes, "You ain't seen nothin' yet", and how true that proves to be. This is where the performers begin, and where they go from there is absolutely amazing. They do not merely use their hands but, instead, they use their whole bodies, and even combine with others to create very complex images, such as an elephant, an undulating landscape, and buildings. The precision needed to do this is incalculable, and yet they make it look so easy. Of course, they do practice for hours every day.

The performance is not just about the shadow play, though, as there are many other skills involved in telling this story. The story itself was created by the members of Pilobolus in collaboration with Steven Banks, who wrote the scripts of the SpongeBob SquarePants cartoons, and it is set to an eclectic and wide ranging soundtrack of music and songs by composer, David Poe, which both echoes and drives the narrative.

Molly Gawler has the lead role of the teenage girl who is in a hurry to become and adult, but whose parents still see her as a child. She escapes into her subconscious, in her dreams, in a coming of age journey. The production begius with the performers bouncing onto the stage and dressing the girl and her parents fro a mime section, eventually putting her to bed, other dancers forming the furniture and carrying her as she flows though that stage between waking and sleep, a feeling of drifting in the air.

Already we have seen mime and acting, merged with dance and movement, and we are only a few minutes into the work. Soon, with the use of the backlit screens and hand held lights a whole lot of effects come and go in rapid succession, until the girl faces her shadow, and then is caught up as the wall spins and she finds herself trapped in Shadowland.

Performers work behind the movable screens creating a range of characters, scenarios, and strange creatures, and they occasionally spill out at either end, giving tantalising glimpses of them as they start to manoeuvre their bodies into shapes that we then see in shadow moments later, completely transformed.

There are some fascinating dichotomies as characters appear grotesque, dangerous, and yet comical at the same time, turning the work into a sort of dark comedy. She encounters three cooks, with a big pot and a mass of rather strange ingredients, who then decide to add her to the soup, resulting in a crazy chase scene. A huge hand remodels her into a dog, then back to a girl with a dogs head. She is captured and forced to perform in a circus, which shifts from shadow to reveal an array of stunning red costumes, and a display of acrobatics. She also meets a centaur and there is a strong attraction between them, but she still wants to become a girl again.

One interlude merges into another and in no time at all ninety minutes has flown past. The audience had been lost in this sensational work, carried away by the incredible imaginative tale and the brilliant way in which it had been told. All sorts of conventions are broken and bold ideas have been embraced, generating something new and exciting, with unbelievably intricate and intimate ensemble performances. The only adequate description for this production is that it is a masterpiece.

In another innovative move they company presents an encore, something one would not normally expect in a dance performance and, to ad to that, it is tailored to the city in which they are performing, in this case, Adelaide. This is definitely one out of the box and not to be missed.

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