East Sydney Community and Arts Centre, Sydney.
1 February 2025.
If you are not an avid supporter of the contemporary dance in Sydney, the name Emma Riches may not have popped up on your radar yet, but this work put Riches on the map. She has been very busy on the independent dance scene. Last year, she was a featured choreographer in DirtyFeet’s ‘Out of the Studio’, then featured as a dancer in the Dance Makers Collective’s All In in this year’s Sydney Festival, and now in the Flying Nun Season by Brand X premiering her own solo work, never are. The program supports several independent artists in a variety of theatrical modalities. Artists receive a small budget, a week’s access to the rehearsal and performance space, a short season to perform their work in East Sydney Community and Arts Centre.
A week is quite a rather short space of time, and you can imagine that it would be pressure on any artist, but diamonds are also created under pressure, so any artist that allows themselves to be in this creative pressure chamber will surely grow from this opportunity. In never are, Riches certainly delivered a unique and creative work and did not come across as a small budget production despite this being the truth.
The audience entered the intimate space to see a large reflective rectangle of staging on the floor, mirror-like in its appearance. The staging alone created such an illuminating effect with the combination of flooring and lighting. The lights reflected against the flooring, almost creating a reflection chamber with audience lining the edges. Sometimes, the reflections of light became too bright, forcing you to shift your gaze. Riches’ vision of the lighting and visual effects was truly brought out by production designer Sam Read. Already moving around the edge of the rectangle, Riches was dressed in an iridescent two piece. The costume design allowed the audience to fully see the shape and line created by the choreographer but also added a second layer of texture to the movement because of the nature of the fabric and how it also reflected the light like a moving mirror.
Eventually moving off the edge of mirrored rectangle, Riches moved into the space more, moving with simplicity but with focused intention. The choreography ebbed and flowed between repetitive sequences and then layered with spoken word over time — first just one word, then two, then a sentence, but was the audience being left a statement or a question?
Whether it was one or the other, it made the audience stay inquisitive. Riches was so skilful in her use of spoken word! For some time, it sounded like it was part of the soundscape recording; after awhile, it became apparent that the spoken word was live. As the movement progressed, it began to pick up in speed as did the dialogue, yet Riches did not break her level of intent or level of performance.
This was one of the longest solo works I have been an audience member for in quite some time. (The duration was around the 45-minute mark. A long time for a solo performer, but it did not even feel like it was close to half an hour?) The audience was fully drawn in and left wanting more! So let’s hope that contemporary dance lovers get the chance to see more from Riches — either a chance for never are to have another season or to see more of what Riches’ creative voice has to share.
By Dolce Fisher of Dance Informa.
Share this:
