I made the mistake, at first viewing, of taking Underland rather too seriously. That's partly the fault of video artist Mike Daly, who contributes a backdrop of immense power and unease, especially in the opening scenes with their accelerated and subliminal snatches of urban anxiety (crash-test dummies, madly wriggling sperm, you name it) and images of full-blown internecine holocaust.
Some of the blame also lies with choreographer Stephen Petronio's choice of Nick Cave songs (remixed and soundscaped here by the original producer of the songs, Tony Cohen, and Paul Healy, respectively) and the order in which they are played.If, rather than ending with it, Petronio's Underland began with the lugubrious, Kirin-soaked-karaoke-song 'Death is Not the End' (complete with We Are The World-style dirge-vocal contributions by Shane MacGowan, Blixa Bargeld, PJ Harvey, Anita Lane, Thomas Wydler, and the saccharinely-sober Kylie Minogue) we'd have a better idea of how to take the piece... With a glass of water at bedtime. To re-hydrate after a huge night out.
"...any second not spent watching Chatfield was a pointless second. A lost second."
But the bulk of the blame lies squarely at the winged feet of Bradley Chatfield. He dances so embarrassingly well -- with such thrilling corporeality and spine-bending, time-bending ease -- that it is an act of professional hara-kiri just daring to appear on the same stage with him. Indeed, on opening night, any second not spent watching Chatfield was a pointless second. A lost second.
Chatfield, alone among the dozen and a half dancers, became the dance. While others around him mimicked it, acted it, hammed it, aspired to it, and very occasionally just did it, Chatfield embodied it. Was it.
Not that the other dancers executed Petronio's choreography badly -- though it must be stated that the level of performance rose spectacularly between first and second performance -- but their repetitions of (and variations on) the movements that Chatfield pioneered looked like a corporatisation of an original impulse: as banal and mechanical and hypnotised as fashion. The very opposite of spontaneity. Indeed, I was beginning to wonder if this was the choreographer's wry subtextual moral.
When Chatfield flicks his leg below the knee -- ballistic and barefooted -- he looks like a pro-poker player dealing cards. When the others do it, they look like they're warming up for the Cowtown Hoedown. Their attitudes lack attitude. When Chatfield twists and spins, it's a kind of physical calligraphy. When the rest do it, it's just a trace; a drawing made with a Spirograph.
Petronio's choreography is impressive, if not especially well-suited to the company's skills. He turns the sign of the cross into an nonfigurative horizontal wave. He abstracts the gestures and actions of crying and punching, dressing and caressing, fucking and failing. Many of his metaphors can't easily be turned into words. But they communicate to us, nevertheless. None better than a lunging, back-arching thrust forward from the pelvis, executed en masse.
But the segue between Wild World and The Carny (from Cave's album Your Funeral, My Trial) is quintessential Petronio: formal, sculptural, blocked and cast as diligently as a shot by a great film director. Tracey Carrodus stands with her back to us, legs scissor-crossed, her right arm held up high, her wrist and flat palm tilted to the right. Behind a neutral scrim, she is lit-up and shining. To her left is a trio on the diagonal. Up stage of her, facing us, is another trio which, after a moment, storms downstage.
Also in The Carny, on-screen plumes of blue flames burst in perfect sync with the synth-tympani of the music. Katie Ripley's fine solo, which follows, turns The Weeping Song (from The Good Son) into a kind of mime, full of wordless arcs and crescent arms, breast caresses and figure eights.
Katie Ripley (click to enlarge)
In many ways, what follows is the low point of Underland. It's post-holocaust chic. The dancers wear (Imitation of Christ-label) khaki rags, the screens show multiple nuclear bursts, and all the dancers get to do is emote and slouch. A palm-up gesture of supplication turns to one of grief. Only Chatfield has the gravitas to turn a mute animal act into something resembling truth.
Petronio compensates us with a blowsy, intoxicated setting of Cave's Ship Song (which follows The Weeping Song on The Good Son). This is Swan Lake's four cygnets for Generation-X-tasy: a mixed-double of groping youngies who look like they've had a huge night out and a few too many tablets. Petronio's melodrama and gentle whimsy is strangely faithful -- even reverent -- to Cave's lushest ballad.
Another high point is the section danced to the limited edition EP-version of Mercy Seat (with Cave singing over piano and acoustic guitar) in which the dancers snake in tight formation, their movements bound.
Though Underland is pretty trivial, on the whole, and lacks the complexity that is repeatedly implied by the video and present in Cave's often awesomely poetic lyrics, this dense 70 minute work is still well worth seeing. Just don't expect to find anything but landfill.
The review was published in the May 31-June 1, 2003, edition of the Australian Financial Review.
