I Want to Dance Better at Parties begins as a live documentary about five individual men's relationship to dance. These men are represented on stage by five dancers and also appear on film projected on screens suspended above. From interviews orignally conducted for a television documentary in the making, these men talk about dancing, their lives and more private thoughts and experiences.

The work begins as a more factual and informative demonstration about these men and the place dancing has in their lives and gradually evolves into a more subjective and expressive work about who they are. As these men divulge information of a much more personal nature the dancers on stage create physical, dynamic portraits of each subject. The piece thus moves out of the realm of documentary into being a highly impressionistic dance work, composed of a series of imagined private dances representative of the subjects' inner lives.

FIVE MEN. FIVE STORIES.

Phillip - After the sudden and tragic death of his wife two years ago, Phillip sold the family business to concentrate on the parenting of his two young children. At a dancing party, a woman suggested that he should consider having some dancing lessons. He then called a dance school and said, "I want to learn how to dance better at parties".

Jack - When Jack turned 50, his wife finally convinced him to accompany her to her Israeli folk dancing group. As a highly regarded telecommunications engineer sepcialising in digital coding, Jack could see re-occurring and varying patterns in the dances and realised that if he could invent a code to represent the dance steps this would be a way to remember them. For the last ten years Jack has collected nearly five thousand Israeli folk dances on his online database.

You can view Jack's database here.

Lindsay - Through dance, Lindsay found his lover and long-term partner of over ten years and through dance Lindsay lost him to another man in his clogging group.

Franc - Describing his attempts to dance as clumsy, awkward and foolish, Franc believes that dance doesn't allow him to present himself the way he really is and pretty much avoids doing it at all costs.

Deon - "Dancing is like an explosion in the body that words cannot describe", says Deon. He is a nineteen-year-old Greek boy from Wheelers Hill who is into traditional Greek folk dancing and clubbing with his friends on Friday and Saturday nights.

Media Response

THE AGE A3 November 23, 2004

Party line to the musings of men

Hilary Crampton

Well Gideon Obarzanek has done it again. This time he has given us dance as sociology, possibly even social work, in a multi-layered presentation that is both engaging and thought-provoking.

I Want to Dance Better at Parties arose out of a film documentary Obarzanek made exploring the attitudes of men towards dancing. Rather than doing another nationwide survey like the one that resulted in Wanted: Ballet for a Contemporary Democracy, this gets up close and personal, drawing upon interviews with five men.

The title belies the reality, as three out of the five have a strong affiliation with different forms of dance. The fourth, whose musings gave the title, arrived at dance late, taking it up to allow him to dance better at parties, while the fifth fell into that presumed stereotype that does not feel comfortable dancing and therefore tries to avoid it.

What we see are highly subjective expressions of these men’s experiences performed by trained dancers, who move as if dance is their natural element. What we hear is the men’s voices describing not only their feelings about dance but about themselves, their lives, their relationships.

The men’s images are projected on to five panels above the dancers’ heads. They do a disembodied duet with one of the dancers, showing their dance of choice, finally reaching the static Franc, who does not dance at all. The dancers shine in the various dance forms, charging across the space in vigorous Israeli dances, happily hoffing it hoedown style, and twirling and leaping in soft-footed Greek dances. Interpretation begins to take off in Phillip’s story of learning ballroom – we see his gradual evolution from robotic shuffler to fluid, confident dancer.

Obarzanek interpolates episodes that act as a metaphorical reflection on the emotional states of the various men. Towards the end the dancers take off, hurling themselves across the floor in more traditional Chunky Move mode – crashing, tumbling, avoiding injury by a whisker by somehow always landing on a tiny crash mat. It is an exercise in risk, precision and timing.

The relationship of these interpolations to the theme is not always clear, and some seem overextended, but they do serve to supplement the introspective musings of the five men. There is a real sensitivity and respect for the subjects. Obarzanek has managed to combine narrative and abstraction to give the audience a very direct experience of both the joy of dance and the fear of ridicule.

As always with Chunky Move the production elements are impeccable, with a finely honed lighting design by Niklas Pajanti and video projection by Michaela French that contributes significantly to the impact of the performance. It is the best use yet of the Chunky Move Studios.

HERALD SUN – Tuesday November 23, 2004

Stephanie Glickman

‘reviews’

THERE is a lot more to men dancing than a single stereotype and Chunky Move’s I Want to Dance Better at Parties delves deep into five real men’s experiences and reflects on what makes them dance.

In each case, it’s a different need – from the widower coming out of grieving and wanting to dance at parties to the Greek man who says dance is an exhibition of his masculinity and pride.

Choreographer Gideon Obarzanek and collaborators treat the honest and emotionally charged stories with sensitivity and succeed in expressing their complexity.

The narratives are introduced by the actual men on video screens and interpreted by the Chunky dancers(at first literally, then, as stories overlap, more abstractly). This straightforward opening gives audiences a direct entry point to the work.

Clogging, Israeli folk, ballroom… the dancers perform all the styles the men discuss. There is even the non-dancer, the wallflower hiding behind his cigarette and ambivalent stare.

As the work progresses and the choreography becomes more involved, with the dancers, arms outstretched, bodies inflating and deflating, sequences of deep breathing and a ferocious duet by Kristy Ayre and Jo Lloyd, there’s a context and meaning for the movement, in light of the stories being told.

This is a well-structured and well-researched piece that truly brings out the multi-dimensionality and variety of the men’s stories. Definitely one of Chunky Move’s best, for its connection to the public, its audiences and closet dancers everywhere.