Adelaide Fringe review: Electric Dreams – Torrent

In recent times, we have seen several large production companies use different forms of augmented reality to increase the wow factor of artistic "experiences". van gogh alive brought 3D and digital reimaginings of the great artist's work to North Adelaide in 2021, while Ouchhh Studio headlined last year's Illuminate Adelaide with an AI show that burst Renaissance artworks into thousands of colored bubbles, splattering them all over the floor and all four walls of a large, purpose-built warehouse.

While these productions are visually and aurally impressive, the quiet impact of original art tends to be drowned out by technological dynamism. not so with Electric dreams: Torrent, where dance, music, poetry and images on the screen are kept in careful balance.

Within the gallery space of a swanky new bar in Light Square, the twinkling stars of the night sky dance across a large square screen (the backdrop to the performance area) and another horseshoe-shaped screen that wraps around the gallery space. audience.

The image changes to a desert landscape as dancer Stefaan Morrow enters, adorned with small illuminated tracking markers. He moves and the screen image of his silhouette moves in sync. The silhouette contains a shimmering mass of copper flakes that rain down onto the desert sand every time Morrow spins. He is joined by a second dancer (Clementine Benson) and as their movements intertwine, their on-screen counterparts merge and dissolve into each other, their pirouetting bodies turning into eddies of dust as the rising sun floods the screen. with an orange red light.

The dancers' movements are smooth and fluid throughout, even when the on-screen action seems frantic. This ingenious choreography, by Lewis Major from South Australia, allows movement to be precisely followed on screen. CGI by Ben Carlin and John Ingle completes the magic.

But the real star of the show is the new spoken word performance piece by poet Yankunytjatjara/Kokotha Ali Cobby Eckermann. Eckermann's elegant and powerful truth-telling has received both national and international acclaim, and Torrent is another testament to the power of his work.

“The emptiness is still inside of me,” he recites as the background darkens and the ballerina's image silvers and begins to drip. “My shaking dreams from long ago / when humans knew the language of water,” she continues, with the image of her rippling, flowing, bursting into wild splashes.

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The performance is quite short, barely 30 minutes. And since the horseshoe screen effects can only be fully experienced from behind, those sitting up front miss out on the more immersive aspects of the show (meteors hurtling towards the stage screen, for example).

However, this is an intimate conversation between dance, poetry, music and technology that is well worth listening to.

Electric Dreams: Torrent is on view in The Light Room at Light ADL @ West Village through March 18.

Read more stories and reviews of the Adelaide Fringe 2023 on InReview here.