Origami

Premiered:
June 2006

Choreographer: Phillip Adams
Artistic Associate:
Linda Sastradipradja
Composer: David Chisholm 
Graphic Design: 3 Deep Design
Architecture: BURO Architects 
Lighting: Benjamin Cisterne

Costumes: Anastasia La Fey
Conceptual Designer
& Origami Consultant:
Matt Gardiner
Animation: Rhian Hinkley
Film Development: XYZ Studios
Dancers: Derrick Amanatidis,
Tim Harvey, Ryan Lowe,
Carlee Mellow, Rachel Ogle,
Clair Peters, Brooke Stamp,
Joanne White

Synopsis
Origami is inspired by the ancient Japanese art of folding paper and the intricate, tactile, and intimate nature pop –up books.

Origami sees BalletLab partnering with the award winning BURO Architects and 3 Deep Design in collaborations that fuse industrial modernist architecture, visual design and the living body in space into a cohesive and innovative performance language.

The concept of the “fold” in architecturally designed set is blended meticulously into permeable architectural crevices and abstract panels and partitions – offering a dynamic physical relationship within the stage space as they are folded and unfolded by the performers.

The refined choreographic vocabulary articulates the inherent synergy of a complex architectural design, and consists of complex architectural partnering that at times directly correlates to origami instruction manuals. Following a natural landscape, where progressions of sea to land to mountains to sky occur, falling bodies slide quietly through the designed spaces, folding and creating valleys and mounds. 

The choreography becomes a landscape of origami, exploding like an orientalist fantasia.
 
Other tangential aspects of the form of origami are explored and juxtaposed with cross-cultural threads; eg the beautiful art form of ikebana (flower arranging), and eccentric origami inspired attire (both tutu and obi).

The projected animations are inspired by a range of Japanese classics Origami plays with Western perceptions of Japanese culture drawn from both traditional Art and pop culture – from Astro Boy to Ikebana, Kimba the White Lion, Mount Fuji to Godzilla and Manga cartoons. 

Rather than seeking to recreate the styles of these masterworks, as homage ORIGAMI seeks to preserve the sense of childhood marvel and fantasy that they inspired. The starting point for David Chisholm’s music for ORIGAMI is the European grouping of the string quartet.

The structure of the music is built as if opening up one giant fold, like a reverse origami, flattening out the memory of the paper, not to erase it, but to create a place from whence it is possible to begin again.

Performance Schedule
USA Tour October 2007
 
Empac Centre, Troy NY
September 20th – 23rd 2007

Vanderbelt University
Nashville Tennessee
September 29th

White Bird
Portland, Oregon U.S.A
October 11th – 13th 2007
 
USA Tour April/May 2008
Check back soon for schedule of dates and venues

Images
Click here to view images

Reviews
“Combining experimental choreography with playful architectural exploration, Origami revels in the act of creation”

“Throughout the performance the dancers remain intimately connected to the set, folding into each other in a state of perpetual transformation” .

“In its most evocative incarnation the set begins as a flat white sheet of hinged panels. Weaving their bodies between the panes the dancers lift and tuck the set into a shifting landscape of fields valleys and mountains” .

“After wreaking havoc across urban Australian, Godzilla wanders into a blossoming springtime landscape where nymph- like dancers crowned with flowered wreaths cheerfully leap into complex ikebana arrangements” .
Natalie Ward,
Artichoke Magazine
July 2006

“Dancers fold and roll over each other ingeniously in panels of tatami flooring, creating a solemn, human bulldozer” .
 
“Origami offers a plethora of the most mesmerizing and complex ballet arrangements that manages to communicate feelings of harmony, beauty and chaos” .
Lee Christofis, The Australian
July 2006

“The dancers of BalletLab are all phenomenal movers and cover the stage relishing exhilarating sequences of overlapping and intertwining allegro” .
Jacqueline Pasco, Dance Australia
October 2006 

“As BalletLab’s latest work Origami commences, I feel as though I am one of thousands of observers at a futuristic yoga class”.
 
“Origami is alive and satisfying yet jarring, there is no telling where one body starts and other begins” . 
 
“The result of this highly conceptual amazing dance work literally unfolds as a mass of strategically entwined limbs, cathartic skits and media- driven backdrops, a complete visual experience” .
 
“If you see Origami, be prepared to have dance on your mind for days afterwards” .
Brooke Pitts–Hill,
Australian Arts and Entertainment
August 2006