Year of Premiere: 2002
Upcoming Performances
For details of upcoming Wanted: ballet for a contemporary democracy
performances, please click
here.
Premiere
Season Credits
Performers
Creative Personnel
Production Team
- Production & Operations Manager
Donna Aston
Stage Manager Annette Dale
- Assistant Stage Manager 'Frog'
Philip Peck (on secondment from the Victorian College of
the Arts)
Concept
Wanted: ballet for a contemporary democracy was created from
the results of a national survey undertaken by Chunky Move
asking over 2,800 members of the Australian public what they
prefer to see in a dance work.
The survey of over thirty questions asked people everything
from details on venue types, to types of music, costumes,
lighting design, movement qualities, dance steps, expressive
qualities of dancers, narrative and abstract form and so on.
In concept this dance à la democracy was inspired by
the work of Russian artists Komar and Melamid who, in 1993,
sought to find out the most wanted painting in the USA by
conducting a nationwide poll with a detailed questionnaire.
The result of this survey was a classical landscape with much
blue sky and water, native animals, an historical figure and
people involved in leisure activity. This ‘ideal’
painting became known as the Blue Landscape (or America’s
Most Wanted painting). Interestingly, when the survey was
replicated in other countries, the Blue Landscape was reproduced
again and again.
While the questionnaire concept in Wanted: ballet for a contemporary
democracy is informed by the work of Komar and Melamid and
is transferred to dance performance, the use of the result
is different.
In this work, survey results are read out on stage with the
work taking shape according to the report (in real time).
This is a work of non-fiction, a demonstration of survey results
and possible works that may be derived from them.
Although Chunky Move does arrive at the ‘Most Wanted’
dance work, the Company also describes and performs the most
unwanted works and niche preferences, (e.g. most preferred
music for students between the ages of 15-25 living in the
NT, and most preferred work by white collar males between
45-55 living in Tasmania).
the original Chunky Move survey PDF*
Media
Response
“Chunky Move opened a seething and
satirical Pandora's box when they conducted a national survey
of the most wanted and unwanted things Australians want to
see in dance… Artistic Director Gideon Obarzanek has
created a thoroughly contemporary work, full of self-reference
and the kind of cheeky irony that makes Australians belly
laugh… Overall the performance works on many levels
but the ultimate beauty of it comes from peeling back and
warping the dance genre. Chunky Move has created an entirely
new form – half theatre of the absurd, half dance and
much more enjoyable than your average troupe of prima ballerinas
in pretty tutus.” THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
“Knowing that this work comes from Gideon Obarzanek
and Chunky Move, it's immediately obvious that its title is
one with attitude - that the piece itself is likely to be
witty, slightly twisted and provocative. And so it is. Wanted:
Ballet for a Contemporary Democracy could have been subtitled
Gideon's Revenge in that he has asked the public what they
liked and given it to them - well, the 632 people who answered
his Australia-wide survey. He has brought together isolated
elements of contemporary dance, dressed them in satirical
exaggeration, then lined them up in front of his audience
like an anthology of bad taste… The drily witty script
is hilarious and a star of the show. The choreographed accompaniment
takes second place, though it, too, has its laugh-aloud moments
in a vigorous, amusingly presented performance… Finally,
he and the performers link a collection of most wanted dance
elements in a parody that adds a few more dance in-jokes as
well as general jollity - topping it off with a truly dreadful
vignette of the Three Little Pigs. OK, OK, message received.
I think most of us know it's not much of an idea to give the
public what we think we want in any area of life. Democracy
works perfectly only for some of the people at any one time.
So give choreographers freedom to do as they wish - flexed
feet, silence, spasmodic poker-faced movement, the lot,”
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD.
“The oft-quoted relationship between lies, damned lies
and statistics is wickedly illustrated in Chunky Move's cheeky
Wanted: Ballet for a Contemporary Democracy. One could read
it as a cynical marketing exercise, a sly dig at managerial
agendas gone mad, or an uncharitable poke at audience naivety
and the carping of critics. Well, this re-run of a ballet
developed from a survey of dance audiences likes and dislikes
is all of those things. It is also funny, as the laughter
resounding around the packed Melbourne Town Hall demonstrated…
Yet it soon becomes evident that there is a lot more to this
work than a simplistic mix of art and logic. The selective
positioning of the statistics and the artfully artless exemplars
are clear evidence of an idiosyncratic mind, which trawls
through cultures and fashions with irreverent delight,”
THE AGE.
“Modern dance isn't often included in a comedy festival
program and it rarely attracts an audience big enough to pack
the (Melbourne) Town Hall. But then, not many modern dance
companies promise a performance that is statistically calculated
to please… After a tribute to some specific respondent's
requests - Chunky Move proving it can Riverdance and flamenco
with the best of them – come Australia's most wanted
and unwanted dance pieces based on the findings. Funny thing
is, what we apparently want most is far less entertaining
than what we dislike… The message is clear: Australian
audiences don't know what's good for them. Leave it to the
experts like Obarzanek to surprise and delight us,”
THE SUNDAY AGE.
“… Friday’s premiere of Wanted, a double
bill of Wanted: ballet for a contemporary democracy and Clear
Pale Skin, was, artistically and socially, one of the happiest
dance occasions in Melbourne in a long time. Not that artistic
director Gideon Obarzanek has caved into his critics; his
confronting imagination is still intact and his tongue is
politically in his cheek. In one memorable moment, dancer
Stephanie Lake announces: "I am not a misogynist",
claiming instead to dislike all people equally - except for
little children. This has to be Obarzanek’s go at feminist
critiques and a challenge to look beneath the surface of his
works. Obviously, if he can’t follow his own lead, he’ll
please no one,” THE AUSTRALIAN.
"Chunky Move continues to stir the pot and divide audiences
with its new double bill Wanted. They have devised another
well-marketed dance event, this time based on the compelling
concept of what Australians want to see in a dance work. Their
answer is Wanted, slick and in your face, with sprinkles of
irony, self-deprecation and humour for the intelligentsia
and virgins of the dance audiences. In documentary-type enactments
of dance moves and styles, the Chunky performers are in fine
technical form," HERALD SUN.
“The work implements the results of dance by democracy…Chunky
Move, with typical subversiveness, seizes on the subtext to
reinforce the fact that compiling an assortment of desired
ingredients is no recipe for success and that artistic alchemy
lies with the ineffable and intangible. In Wanted, literalism
plus contrivance equals hilarity… I can’t recall
laughing so much at a dance production,” THE COURIER
MAIL.
"This joyful, beautifully choreographed show is not to
be missed if you want to leave a dance show with a big smile
on your face," THE MANLY DAILY.
Other
Responses
By Mark Davis (Author Of Gangland: Cultural Elites And
The New Generationalism)
Wanted is deceptively obvious. Despite appearances, it has
an opinion. It might look like a straightforward response
to a survey about what kinds of dance people want –
an exemplar of democracy in action – but It turns out
instead to be about democracy itself.
What is the relationship between artistic vision and simply
giving people what they want? That’s a topical question
in a broader climate where politicians would rather consult
opinion polls than offer leadership, where political parties
don’t represent ideals so much as they’re positioned
in the ‘political marketplace’ according to a
logic of ‘product differentiation’, and where
voters are treated as consumers, not citizens.
Visionary leadership is often ahead of opinion, encouraging
people to change their minds about issues by offering better
alternatives. Dance is like that too. Wanted is dance with
something to say; dance at the forefront of contemporary life;
dance taking a risk and daring to look forward and offer a
vision.
By Tom Wright (Dramaturg)
Statistics, we’re soaking in them. Every act we might
perform these days is ultimately reduced to a series of numbers
that some demographer somewhere will read. Every purchase
option, every street down which we choose to drive, every
word we read ends up as a percentile for someone to use and
sell. They are the ultimate authority now; even what is weirdly
known as the Arts Industry cannot justify itself any more
unless it hides behind the apposite market research.
The refined but disinterested voice of marketing drones across
the stage. Appropriate soundtrack for the modern age, when
something elusive as taste is brought down to the nitty-gritty
of numbers. Dance choice is digitalised; the choreographer
throws his hands in the air and decides to abandon the dreaded
Elites and spend the taxpayer’s money on what the taxpayers
want. Wanted, a piece for the times. How disconcerting to
find that when Chunky Move in all conscience tries to fulfil
the demands of contemporary Australia we end up with something
out of Triumph of the Will. After the Olympics this is the
new tribal dance, the bland leading the blonde, mouthing "A
darkness threatens" just in case we start to feel relaxed
and comfortable.
There you go, arts elites. Just accept that you’re 4.9
percent of the population and shut up while we are uplifted.
You can’t argue with numbers.
Web Documentary
Find out more about the creative process behind Wanted: ballet
for a contemporary democracy via Chunky
File 2
Performance
History
For details of Wanted’s Performance History, please
click
here.
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