NEWCASTLE'S renowned professional contemporary dance company, Catapult Dance Choreographic Hub, will perform two very different shows in February, with one presented in the City Hall's elegant concert venue and the other in Civic Park Fountain.
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Catapult's reputation for staging dance shows in unusual venues, such as Newcastle Art Gallery, and having the dancers move around the audience, has led to it being invited to perform in Sydney and other cities. The dancers it has trained have won positions with Australian and overseas professional dance companies.
The City Hall show, Awkward, which is part of the Civic Theatre's 2021 Season, will have performances nightly at 7.30pm from Thursday, February 11, to Saturday, February 13, plus an 11am show on the Thursday.
The Civic Park Fountain show, Acquist, is an event in the New Annual Arts Festival put together by Newcastle City Council.
The festival will be presented at different venues between February 12 and 21. Acquist will have performances nightly from Friday, February 19, to Sunday, February 21, at 7.30pm.
Tickets for Awkward are on sale from the Civic Theatre, but those for Acquist won't be available until the council releases its official list of the festival's shows in early January.
Awkward, which is directed by Catapult's founder Cadi McCarthy in association with Craig Bary, who is also a performer in the show, has a group of people coming to a party at the invitation of friends of the host.
They don't know each other, nor do they know whose house it is. And, of course, the friends don't turn up.
The visitors initially show themselves to be socially awkward and tongue-tied when meeting strangers. But their interactions increasingly show them to be very different.
There is an introvert, an extrovert, a hanger-on, and a person in lust.
In addition to Craig Bary, the cast includes Alexander Abbot, Belle Beasley, Angelyn Diax, Alexandra Ford, Nicola Ford, Mikayla Nangle, Skip Willcox, and Sophia Van Gent.
The characters in Awkward, which runs for 70 minutes without interval, move around the audience as well as on stage, sometimes interacting with them.
The show's music, which is performed by Zackari Watt, includes the song Under Pressure, by David Bowie and Queen, which underlines the feelings of the visitors.
The cast of Acquist features several of the performers in Awkward: Belle Beasley, Alexander Abbot, Craig Bary, Alexandra Ford, Nicola Ford, Mikayla Nangle, and Sophia Van Gent.
The performers' movement around the fountain and against various backgrounds bring out the nature of Newcastle's environment and its industrial history.
The City of Newcastle's project manager, Kate Britton, approached Cadi McCarthy and asked her if she could create a work in the beautiful sculptural fountain created by Margel Hinder, a renowned American-born sculptor who moved with her husband to Sydney in the mid-1930s. When she was approached by Newcastle officials in the 1960s to create a sculptural fountain in Civic Park she had no hesitation.
The fountain, which she called the Captain James Cook Memorial Fountain, was completed in 1966, and became her acknowledged master work. The fountain, which has three main sculptural forms, was created with sheet copper and granite, reinforced inside with stainless steel.
Cadi McCarthy says that performing in the fountain is "an incredibly unique approach to creating work as there are so many different elements to consider - water, weather, surfaces, and then the dancers' bodies within that".
"I had to look at how I was going to create a work in the fountain that utilised all these elements.
"I approached Zackari Watt with a crazy idea I had for a set within the fountain itself and the results are incredible - with the dancers looking like they can walk on water.
"Choreographically it was an interesting development process with half of the rehearsals spent in the fountain and the other half in the studio.
"It was important to work out what was possible in the water as it is really heavy to move. But it really has been a fantastic process to create in such a beautiful site-specific location."
The performance will also explore Newcastle's environment and its industrial history, with Cadi pointing out that Margel Hinder had come up with a timeless classic design, with the fountain also looking at the rugged coastal cliffs and the old rock walls around Newcastle.
She noted that renowned Newcastle architect Brian Suters had said in 1966 that "Margel felt Newcastle had a certain rugged character, with its coastal cliffs and industry.
"She wanted that in her fountain design."
Margel Hinder also wrote: "(My) shapes are intended to signify certain qualities that I feel are expressive of Newcastle: energy, vigour and a metallic strength".
Another reference by Hinder was that she had attempted to create a fountain that worked as a sculpture when the water was off and when it was on.
She pointed to it being designed to present a view from all angles except the inaccessible back.
When asked what audiences could expect from the performance, Cadi McCarthy said "An absolutely beautiful evening of contemporary dance, performed by outstanding professional dancers, and accompanied by a brilliant orchestral score by Newcastle composer Zackari Watt within the surrounds of Margel Hinders' riveting fountain.
"It's a perfect way to spend a summer's evening."
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