Canberra-based Australian Dance Party performed Mine! in Queen Street Mall as part of Supercell Festival of Contemporary Dance, an engaging and visually exciting performance piece dealing with the proposed new mega-mines in Queensland. Originally commissioned for National Science Week ACT, Mine!
Five dancers in brightly coloured jumpsuits and carrying boxes of Lego performed the work, choreographed by Alison Plevey with the Party artists, with strong technique, synchronicity, and conviction.
Musically, the theme was established early with Working in the Coal Mine as the opening, and went on to include vastly different styles of music, with sudden changes of style and pace, from piano to metal, as well as mechanical and industrial soundscapes and the percussion and sounds of the Lego boxes and blocks on concrete.
The piece explored the short-sighted and self-centred behaviours and capitalist ideals that have resulted in the proposed mega-mines, and challenges the audience to reconsider the concepts of ‘mine’, ‘yours’, and ‘ours’, and the power of possession. Using the Lego buckets and pieces as props, the dancers performed the hoarding, arranging, and discarding of resources as well as creative and destructive forces, building their own creations and destroying others’. The piece concluded with strong spoken word statements and statistics related to the mines, and applause from the large crowd that had gathered to watch.
For more information about Supercell Festival of Contemporary Dance, visit the website.
For more information about Australian Dance Party, visit their website.
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