DANCE: NOT IN A MILLION YEARS

Stacked on top of each other, the stories beggar belief. A man who wakes up from a ten-year coma, and then speaks lucidly for 16 hours. A flight attendant who falls from an aeroplane without a parachute – and survives. A woman who won 37 million pounds in the British lottery – and it ruined her life. It’s, “All the stuff that doesn’t add up, that can’t be true,” says Kate Champion of Force Majeure’s latest production, Not in a Million Years. And yet they are true. “I wanted to figure out the fascination we have with when an ordinary person goes through an extreme experience,” says Champion – citing our obsession with the TV show Australian Story and the recent media circus surrounding the Chilean miners as examples. These extreme situations yield rich resources for performance theatre – “A lot of complex and varied things come up about how we behave as humans and our coping mechanisms,” – explored through choreographed gestural language, projections, music and spoken word. But the big question is, how would you cope? “That’s a conversation we have amongst the company all the time. Different stories trigger different responses. There was the story of the man who walked on the wire between the World Trade Centres in the 70s. Some of the men focused on the fact that he did this incredible thing – whereas the women pick up on how many people he used to achieve this feat. And yet they were completely unacknowledged.” Luckily, Not in a Million Years is definitely a team effort.

Nov 17-27, Carriageworks, 245 Wilson St, Eveleigh, $22-30, 8571 9099, carriageworks.com.au