^{Cover Image: LANDCORPS, by South Korean choreographer Pansun Kim. Image by Stephen Heath Photography.}

As a rule it’s Perth Festival that brings works by distantly located, internationally celebrated choreographers to WA. 

So it’s a coup for LINK Dance Company to be presenting work by much lauded UK-based, Israeli-born choreographer and composer Hofesh Shechter, as part of its contemporary dance double bill Enter Coda.  

Designed as a launchpad into professional dance, LINK draws its dancers from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts’ Bachelor of Creative and Performing Arts Honours program. For this season they are joined by guests from WAAPA’s BA Dance and BPA (Performance Making) courses.  

With the dancers’ futures in mind, no doubt, LINK artistic director Michael Whaites programs bills that showcase their artistic and technical range. In the case of Enter Coda, this makes for striking viewing, with works that complement one another, physically and emotionally.  

Opening the program is LANDCORPS, created for this season by South Korean choreographer Pansun Kim. As the name implies, this abstract work explores the idea of the body as “terrain and surface”, as well as tensions between “the individual and the collective”. 

The Liberty Theatre can feel cavernous, but the illusion of intimacy is created by an elevated stage in combination with Matthew Erren’s clever lighting design. In hazy half light, seven gleaming lycra-clad creatures ooze from floor to stage, as though emerging from a primordial swamp.  

^{LANDCORPS, by choreographer Pansun Kim. Image by Stephen Heath Photography.}

The opening moments of the Grand Finale excerpts are characterised by wild abandon. Freed from Kim’s lycra, in loose-fitting, colourful garb (based on original designs by Tom Scutt) the 11 dancers have clearly understood Shechter’s assignment, a credit to them but also to rehearsal director Zee Zunnur, a former collaborator and performer with the Hofesh Shechter Company, who has restaged these excerpts with glorious impact.  

As is typical of Shechter, Grand Finale is characterised by a reckless, ecstatic energy, drawn from his folk dance roots, but also contemporary rave culture. Often feet are in constant motion – marching, skipping, jumping – while upper bodies are loose, arms circling and extending, elbows jabbing, hands juddering.  

It’s driven by his own score (created with collaborators Neil Catchpole and Yaron Engler), a blend of strings and percussion that ranges from meditative to rioting. As that suggests, there are sections of relative quiet amongst the chaos. Notable is a section of three embracing duets. In eerie light (based on the original concept by Tom Visser) one partner is draped over the other, a puppet that is manipulated by its master.  

While the many high octane scenes feel almost transcendent, there’s a sense of danger too, figures that break away from the group, to squat, hunch and flinch menacingly at the audience. 

Ultimately, however, these scenes feel charged with possibility, with the joy that comes from our ability to express ourselves through movement. As noted, on opening night all cast members captured the freedom that characterises Shechter’s style, but Megan Lamb and Asia Rovizzi were particularly memorable for their electric performances. 

Running at an hour, Enter Coda is a punchy double bill that lights up the Liberty Theatre, but it closes tomorrow, so if you want to catch it, now is the time. 

Enter Coda runs till till the 30 May at the Liberty Theatre, visit the website to book.