Contemporary Dance Performance by RAW Moves
by Brenda Boh & Yasmeen Banu
RAW Moves, a contemporary dance company, presented Optical Appetite on 28August, at University Cultural Centre (UCC) of National University of Singapore (NUS).
This is their first collaboration with ExxonMobil Campus Concerts (EMCC) and with the support of NUS Centre For the Arts (CFA), the team presented a spectacular dance performance.
Richard Causer, the choreographer for Optical Appetite, describes the dance as an emotion he wanted to explore. An emotion that sparked from trying to bring reality and transform it into movements, undulate whirls, spins and dominant strides. He wanted to tell a story through humans, the easily tempted species, in the form of dance.
With strong dance moves and minimal stage props, the dance effectively portrays the strong human instinct of greed and temptations. The dance is a succession of strong twirls, sultry and sexy saunters, explosions of jumps as well as heavy prances and slick quick steps.
In contrast to the complicated dance moves, simple props like a wooden box, fruits and a cake definitely made the performance more intriguing. What caught the audience’s attention would definitely be the scene in which a belt of fruits and vegetables were pulled to the front of the stage. This segment expressed the animalistic behaviour of humans and it was shown through the dancers’ crude gobbling and throwing of the food.
The cake smashing scene was undoubtedly another highlight of the dance, which involved the smashing of the dancers’ faces onto whole cakes. It was a shocking yet impactful scene as it successfully portrayed the irrationality of humans in the light of greed and temptation.
With a great mixture of tension, impact and a subtle hint of humour, this intriguing performance ended the night perfectly!
