So it’s March already and maybe it’s fate that I put off writing about Karen Pearlman’s film Breaking Plates until International Women’s Day transpired. The film was a chaotic romp which delved deep into the representation of women of the silent film era. Not just any women though, no, more succinctly the movers and shakers, the protagonists, the females that mustered mayhem and left a right mess in their wakes.
Pearlman’s Breaking Plates heavily references the four disc documentary series titled Cinema’s First Nasty Women (curated by film scholars Maggie Hennefeld, Laura Horak, and Elif Rongen-Kaynakçi) featuring “shorts from the U.S. and Europe that anarchically celebrate feminist and racial protest, slapstick rebellion, and gender play.”
What separates Pearlman’s documentary short from its source material is her praxis of choreographic re-inhabitations. As an Indigenous dance maker this practice of replay is sorely underrated and something I can relate to. This is how we communicate with ancestors through The Dreaming, by animating The Dreaming narratives through dance, song and storytelling we go to that non linear time and space otherwise known as the everywhen. Furthermore, in his paper The Body as Archive, performance theorist Andre Lepecki extrapolates upon this practice of revisiting, describing it as a vital component in the creative process, of presencing the originating act and therefore securing its future in inexhaustible manifestations.
Pearlman’s dance doco proved to be a kind of gateway drug of sorts for me as it led me down a rabbit warren of silent films via YouTube. Through Pearlman’s choreographic re-play I found a new appreciation for the pioneers of film. I recognised the editing techniques I regularly employ and have taken for granted. I was also ignorant of just how radical the first films were, including the depiction of cross dressing and of feminist ideals.
I have to say that it was wonderful to see Julie-Anne Long feature in Pearlman’s Breaking Plates; her expressive face lends an exuberance to the work so succinctly and is immediately evocative of the era in question. When she appeared on the screen I couldn’t help but think her alter ego Val (the invisible) would have fit right in, quietly making mischief as she goes about her business.
From Breaking Plates viewed at the Dendy in Newtown as part of the Antenna Festival, I traveled to Melbourne a week later to see Raymond Blanco and Dr. Priya Srinivasan’s new work Bunyi Bunyi Bumi as part of the Asia Topa lineup. At first I wondered how on earth I was going to create continuity between these two dance offerings but it was in the description of Pearlman’s creative practice that Bunyi Bunyi Bumi’s purpose also applies, of paying homage to, or listening to, and giving weight to the things from the past to reimagine, to re-establish them anew.
Bunyi Bunyi Bumi, begins with a recorded monologue outlining how aspects of culture are but remnants of what they once were. This is extrapolated upon with performer/collaborator Waangenga Blanco’s opening monologue which features him in a scenario forcefully cajoling a child into a car. In this gambit I could only think that the invention of the car remains an easily identifiable accoutrement to the mechanism of industry, much like the phone, which has enabled us to travel vast distances while simultaneously distracting us from our connection to country.
The set, designed by Kuku Yalanji artist Vernon Ah Kee included three hanging curtains of dangling roped fringe which served as a projection surface whilst being translucent so as to see the action conducted behind it, deeming the imagery and live embodied component more closely linked. There were moveable platforms which were shifted by the dancers throughout the performance which prompted a metaphor of tectonic plates, of the land mass before and after Gondwana.
Of course I could identify the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dance languages employed in this contemporary offering and was impressed by Waangenga Blanco’s physicality, which was expanded upon significantly from his repertoire since he was employed with Bangarra Dance Theatre. Somehow there was an added dimension of expression which included a vulnerability which seemed genuine, more than representative.
I must confess I have danced with/ for Acehnese performer/ collaborator Alfira O’Sullivan at the Casula Powerhouse. Of course I was the only non-Acehnese dancer. I felt like a great lummox sitting amongst the comparatively small statured women on either side of me making intricate intertwined patterns with our arms to rhythms that had me flummoxed. So it was another secretive joy to see this cross cultural collaboration at play.
While I was impressed with so many elements of the work including the culminating partnering trio, which was both mesmeric and horrific in equal measures leaving an indelible impression for me to dine on for days afterwards. However, I would have to say that Murtala’s dancing throughout this work was a standout. He was able to consummately bridge the ritual with the spectacle, the intensity with which he projected himself was both ceremonial, of great import and simultaneously pedestrian, without artifice. There was a rhythm section with drums laid out, first in a circle and then in a line across the front of the stage, whereby Murtala would pick up a drum, start to bang it and then proceed to move back and forth as if possessed. This he repeated until this motif was exhausted and he was left in a state of exhaustion. However his commitment to the act was so compelling I felt this could also suffice as an ending.
And so another month has passed. See you in three weeks with the next installment of dance for which I will be dueting with a country woman from across the ditch in An Honest Conversation. Watch this space!
Vicki Van Hout
FORM Dance Projects
Blogger in Residence
An Honest Conversation: https://riversideparramatta.com.au/whats-on/an-honest-conversation/
Breaking Plates won Best Short Documentary at the 2025 Antenna Documentary Film Festival. https://physicaltv.com.au/breaking-plates/
Cinema’s First Nasty Women: https://wfpp.columbia.edu/cinemas-first-nasty-women/#Project_Credits