Kaidan: A Ghost Story

January 22nd 2007 12:00 am | Theatre | Review - By Diana Simmonds

A creative mind at the top of its form.

In another - typically Tankard - sequence, Jan Pinkerton's silvery-white moth-butterfly-insect creature floats and flies up and down a "tree" at the extreme edge of the stage while drummers occupy the foreground. When not assisting in her progress, her paper fan wings envelop her until she is a chrysalis and almost not there at all.

The shifting focus - and the almost overwhelming choice of images on offer throughout the hour and 15 minutes of Kaidan - is one of the more obvious clues of a creative mind at the top of its form. Tankard's characteristic mix of flying and tumbling with dancers involved in sequences which shift in a drum/heart beat from staccato and brief to elongated and lyrical is fully extended by the total integration of the seven members of TaikOz. Drummers and dancers are similarly clad in classic Japanese black (costume co-ordination: Judith Meschke) and are frequently indistinguishable, particularly when the dancers use fans as percussion instruments and one drummer takes to the air in a sequence of martial arts-dance moves. (Score by Cleworth, musical director Timothy Constable and TaikOz members.)

Unique to the Tankard world is the visual contribution of Regis Lansac. His extended and ambitious visuals - video, collages, still images - coupled with Trudy Dalgliesh's lighting design and Stephen Curtis's co-design of the set add thrilling dimensions to a work that defies boundaries and pigeonholes.

After working overseas for some time, including Disney and Broadway, this is Tankard's first major work in Australia since 2003's Wild Swans (for the Australian Ballet but shelved indefinitely). Nevertheless, the Sydney Festival-Sydney Opera House commission Kaidan is the most extraordinary dance-theatre-music work to be generated in this country since Nigel Jamieson's 2006 Honour Bound.

Although approaching their art from different poles, Jamieson and Tankard share several key characteristics: a consuming passion for their work, a passion for theatre and storytelling of the highest order, an unrelentingly rigorous approach to everything they do and an unwillingness to compromise. The results are works the world wants to see and that we can be proud of. Hallelujah.

Kaidan: a Ghost Story, Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House to January 31; www.sydneyfestival.org.au or 9250 7777 or Festival Ticketek 1300 888 412

You can view a video preview of Kaidan by clicking here.

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