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Leigh Warren Dancers.
Leigh Warren has good reason to describe his company’s latest piece as ‘a head turning piece of dance’. A tongue in cheek look at tennis, Warren is thrilled with the results, especially as he’s just reached a conclusion.
"We’ve just finished the ending, so I’ve got a show," he tells me, late on a Friday afternoon. He admits that contemporary dance can be a difficult artform, pointing out that’s why ‘Mixed Doubles’ uses the services of dramaturge Sam Harem. "He’s been great in finding a logical structure to this work, because sometimes we rely on movement too much," he says of dance in general. For ‘Mixed Doubles’ he wanted an unambiguous storyline, and the work begins with the rules of tennis, and utilising surtitles comes together as a loving look at sport, which Warren maintains is not so dissimilar from artistic creation.
"There’s a rivalry between art and sport, I don’t know why," he explains. "Federer and Agassi and Lleyton are artists in their way, there’s a lot of similarities."
This is something Warren has been trying to get together for a long time - it dates back to a piece from a number of years ago called ‘Set Point Love Match’. What had captivated him was the way tennis was played - regulated - proscribed, almost - into defined spaces and responses. "Yes, and the rhythms are everything," he emphasises, "the body responding almost before the brain, to make a superhuman leap."
Alongside the pure physicality of the sport, psychology and temper tantrums provide comedic aspects to the work, and though Warren won’t tell me any more, he nearly chokes on a chuckle when he mentions the name Lleyton Hewitt again.
"They’re a fantastic collection of personalities," he says of his seven dancers. "The group dynamic is fantastic. They work well together, you can split that team a number of ways... and it’s a lucky number."
Add in the four musicians from Tankstream string quartet who provide the musical accompaniment and "we become a company of eleven.. the musicians become a part of our company," he enthuses of working with them. "It’s the risk and the spontaneity of it; performing to recordings can be really wonderful but they’re set in place."
The music for ‘Mixed Doubles’ was specifically commisioned for the project from David Hirschfelder (who gave us the score of the movie ‘Shine’), and he and Warren have worked on and off for five years polishing the piece. It’s a tough piece of dance performance for the company, too, ranging from the slower middle piece Courtship to the busy requirements of Raquet Wars, the final piece.
"It’s well paced for them," Warren muses of his dancers, "but it’s very hard on them. It’s a lot faster than I imagined it might be."
Alex Wheaton
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Leigh Warren Dancers (with Tankstream string quartet) perform ‘Mixed Doubles’ at Elder Hall, Adelaide University, from Fri 20 Feb.
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