Ignition 06

It's coming together, it's not bad," begins Tim Ohl, sounding just a little less than enthused about progress for his part in 'Ignition 6', the home grown choreography programme for the Australian Dance Theatre, where the companies dancers get the chance to put on their own work for once in a season. Usually during the course of any year the company is busy touring and performing major works - and in 2005 there was no time at all for the Ignition series - since the company was in Europe performing 'The Age Of Unbeauty' and 'Held'.

This year a window of opportunity has been found, and 'Ignition' is a wonderful vehicle to experience some fast moving dance pieces where there is simply never enough time to get restless. Each performance, and there are nine or ten in total, lasts for about six minutes or so.

An added challenge for this year's choreographers is that of physical limitations; they've been set the task of performing within what is jokingly referred to as 'the worlds smallest stage', a performance area constrained at two square metres. It does, I suppose, add another dimension for the dancers.

"I'm only using two people to do a duet," says Ohl by way of answer. "It's definitely not much space, and some of the movement is a little bit ballistic, its challenging fitting all these moves in."

When I ask whether he or the other dancers have copped any black eyes during the rehearsal process he chuckles in appreciation - or is it at the memory - when he says "you get smashed in the nose every couple of days, I suppose."

'Broken Departed' is the piece Ohl is working on for 'Ignition 6', a stylized and topical representation about "a short relationship on a plane which is about to crash".

Since his piece explores the close interaction of an airline flight - in part - I'd suppose space constraints was no great problem, but 'Broken Departed' tells the tale of three people, the third being a partner to one of the two on the aircraft, who is out and about in the destination city, removed from the action as it unfolds. "My piece deals with people being strangers and how they build a relationship," he explains.

"I'm doing a lot of tap dance so I really only need enough space for that," he admits, then recalls he has to fit his sound effects into the same space, since he's using electronic pads to enable his soundtrack. "I've been playing around with triggers and getting the tiles sorted and moving them around for best effect, but that's pretty much sorted."

Alex Wheaton

ADT perform 'Ignition 6' from Tues 15 - Fri 18 Aug at the ADT studios Hawthorn, then around Adelaide's regional cultural centres until the end of the month