SYDNEY FRINGE: THOUSANDS
Matthew Day is happy to be that dancer dazzling audiences in a show of virtuosity – as long as it is in somebody else’s work. For his first solo piece, Thousands, he had a different idea of pushing the bounds of what dance can do. Via Skype from New York, Day tells me he was exploring how to be, “Most active” in dance. It seems ironic that he achieves this by exploring stillness and slow motion – the space between action. In the aforementioned display of dazzling virtuosity, Day explains you have to be still inside, as in, “The eye of the storm.” In Thousands Day inverts this, internalising the storm to create a still and controlled outer. The work was received by both controversy and acclaim when it premiered at the Next Wave emerging arts festival this year. It is at once highly conceptual and beautifully simplistic, underpinned by live sound design from Sydney artist James Brown.
Sep 18-25, PACT, 107 Railway Pde, Erskinville, $18-22, thesydneyfringe.com.au
BY MEGAN GARRETT-JONES
