Amplification follows contemporary dance’s trajectory of demythologising the dancer’s body. In the experience of trauma, Adams seems to suggest that all bodies – even the perfect specimens of Balletlab’s cast – become the same. Identities dissolve as we each become nothing more than a body out of control.
Three couples lay sprawled across the ground, their silhouettes barely visible against the dark and empty room. A singular light emanates from a set of turntables by the wall. Blaring mechanical sounds serrate the uncannily still air.
As flashes begin to pulse from a series of off-kilter neons, the figures come to life with similarly fragmentary gestures. But their interactions soon become violent. Bodies jerk and twist, their movements at once frenetic and perfectly executed, one figure’s actions flowing into another as they each struggle for control.
So begins Amplification, the inaugural production from Balletlab, which propelled the company and its director Phillip Adams onto the international stage when first performed in 1999. Now returning to the Malthouse as part of the 2011 Dance Massive programme, it’s easy to see why – more than a decade later, the production is as intense and pertinent as ever.
The concept of Amplification centres upon the car crash, examining the sensory expansion of time that is said to occur in the 1.6 seconds prior to impact. Through jarring and at times uncomfortably abrasive combinations of sound, light and movement, the spectatorial experience emulates this distortion of temporality and perception.
As the narrative progresses, however, the idea of collision exceeds that of the road accident to become moreso metaphoric, exploring the power dynamics that are inherent in any human encounter. Different dancers assume positions of dominance throughout the choreography, yet a sexually charged, almost sadomasochistic undercurrent permeates their gestures. There is something of J.G. Ballard’s Crash here, this loss of control taking on highly erotic connotations.
Amplification follows contemporary dance’s trajectory of demythologising the dancer’s body. In the experience of trauma, Adams seems to suggest that all bodies – even the perfect specimens of Balletlab’s cast – become the same. Identities dissolve as we each become nothing more than a body out of control.
This is driven home in Amplification’s final image – a pile of naked corpses, their tangled limbs spotlit yet indistinguishable. Evoking what is perhaps the ultimate symbol of the effacement of identity – the death camps of the Holocaust – this haunting conclusion reveals the more sinister implications of the struggle for domination.
