Complexity of Belonging 2014
Born from the long-standing and critically lauded collaboration between Chunky Move Artistic Director Anouk van Dijk and influential playwright and director Falk Richter, Complexity of Belonging was a daring, politically charged work from two of dance and theatre’s most unflinching makers. A powerful, darkly humorous exploration of identity in the age of social media, Complexity of Belonging peered into the lives of nine interconnected individuals as they grappled with the question: how and where do I belong? Nationality, gender, sexuality and history collided and fragmented on stage in this audacious theatrical exposé into the daily trials of surviving in a hyper-connected, hyper-sensitive, globalised society.
Complexity of Belonging was a co-production between Chunky Move, Melbourne Theatre Company, Melbourne Festival, Brisbane Festival and Théâtre National de Chaillot.
Creative Team
Concept, Choreography & Direction Anouk van Dijk & Falk Richter
Text Falk Richter
Set Design Robert Cousins
Costume Design Mel Page
Lighting Design Niklas Pajanti
Composition Malte Beckenbach
Dramaturg Nils Haarmann & Daniel Schlusser
Assistant Director Gary Abrahams
Assistant to the Choreographer Niharika Senapati
Original Performers
Joel Bray, Lauren Langlois, Alya Manzart, Eloise Mignon, James Vu Anh Pham, Stephen Phillips, Josh Price, Karen Sibbing, Tara Jade Samaya
Additional Touring Performers Laura Jane Turner, Catherine Van-Davies
Artistic Director Anouk van Dijk
Executive Producer Catherine Jones
Business and Program Manager Hillary Coyne
Production Manager Michael Carr
Stage Manager Blair Hart
Deputy Stage Manager (Melbourne) Alice Fleming
Sound Operation (Melbourne) Marco Cher-Gibard
Lighting Technician/Operator (Europe) Remko Van Wely
Lighting Technician/Operator (New Zealand/Taipei) James Conway
Sound Operation (Touring) Gideon Cozens
World Premiere
6 October 2014 Melbourne
Touring Seasons
2015 Paris, Berlin, Taipei, Utrecht
2016 Wellington
2017 Aarhus
2018 Rotterdam, Groningen, Bruges, Amsterdam, Kerkrade
Awards
2014 Green Room Award For Best Female Dancer (Lauren Langlois)
“The ceasefire between words and movements yields rich results in this rare collaboration.” Time Out
“Clever and funny… Chunky Move is a true discovery” Danser. Read More.
“Very rarely do I connect so deeply with a choreographic theatre performance... stunning movements, witty dialogues and, heart-wrenching emotions” Peril. Read More.
“Word and movement are intricately intertwined... deeply moving and frequently hilarious... a must see.” Australian Stage. Read More.
A note from Daniel Schlusser
Welcome to Complexity of Belonging, a “new human-installation project,” a world in which individual stories, the search for connection and belonging, cohere and dissolve in dynamic chain reactions. Choreographies of dislocation and neurosis, empowerment and vulnerability forge a contemporary exploration of fundamental aspects of our humanity.
As this century gathers pace we find the theme of belonging is a potent one. The search for the “real self” is extraordinarily fluid. From choices around gender, sexual preference and nationality, to vicious categorisations that reinforce tribal enmity. From the struggle to assert the right to self-identify, to the resistance to imposed identity. These are the politics of inclusion and exclusion that, utterly dependent on context, can serve radically different ideologies, both tyrannical and utopian.
In Complexity of Belonging, van Dijk and Richter use the dense theoretical resources surrounding the concept of belonging – with its subsets of identification, identity and recognition – as a framework. But, as Richter says, “At its core, belonging is not a theoretical construct but rather an individual experience.” For van Dijk, the questions, “Can I be myself?” and “What is forming who I am?” are the questions that bring theory into the physical realm. In what amounts to a political as well as artistic strategy, both bring the personal experiences of the individual performers to the fore. They construct spoken and physical texts that find their origins in the unique body and the eccentricities of personal history: in both the unity and fragmentation that “authentic” biography can provide. This material is then adapted and re-contextualised so that it can also exist in a poetic space, a space of melodrama and tragedy, of the idealised and the epic.
This project is at once the view of the outsider looking in on a strange land as well as an internal vision of the country as experienced by individual Australians. At times an investigation into the clichés surrounding identity, at others a deeply personal experience of gender-division, contemporary courtship rituals, surprising discoveries around race, and the plurality of our sub-cultural modes of behaviour. In Complexity of Belonging, triviality and profundity jostle in a kind of Comédie humaine, a panorama of human stories; from internet dating and long-distance relationships to the intimacy of bodies huddling together under a vast Australian sky.
Lauren Langlois, Stephen Phillips Image: Jeff Busby
L-R: Stephen Phillips, Joel Bray, Eloise Mignon, Karen Sibbing, Lauren Langlois, Tara Jade Samaya, James Vu Anh Pham, Josh Price, Alya Manzart Image: Jeff Busby