‘Utterance’ showcases choreography from VCA graduate Siobhan McKenna as part of the ‘YOUR WAY’ Fringe Season at Dancehouse. The captivating contemporary dance display proposes original and modern outlooks on sound and language as perceived through dance and movement.
The ensemble of performers includes Arabella Frahn-Starkie, Hillary Goldsmith, Rhys Ryan and Emma Riches as they respond to these dynamic socio-cultural questions. Siobhan has stated that “Utterance investigates the sensorial body, considering how we as humans interpret and relate to sound.” Sound, in many ways, defines how we relate to the world around us – it can be soothing, it can be a warning, it can be familiar or unfamiliar. Perhaps, as with all senses, the true beauty of our perception of sound comes in the varying capacities in which we perceive it – a sound can be different to each person, and thus their interpretation of and relationship to that sound will be worlds apart.
Utterance serves to address the notion of how we perceive language. Much like music, language is only interpreted the way that it is because of what we understand it to evoke. It is our perception of the random collection of sounds that make up music or language that gives those things their inherent value, that allows us to understand them. As the creators of the work explain it, “audiences are whisked away on a rhythmic journey, navigating intertwining patterns of spoken text and dance until they reach new understandings of the potential for language. Is it possible to detach language from literal meaning until it becomes purely textural sound?”
