venue: Chunky Move
season: March 4-5 2005
choreography: Jo Lloyd
performers: Luke George, Tim Harvey, Jo Lloyd
design: Shio Otani
music: Duane Morrison
photography: Rohan Young

all fun and games, ‘till someone gets hurt …
Set in an all-encompassing installation, three characters dredge through the remnants of last night’s excess and try to reconstruct what might have happened.

High Maintenance exposes private behaviour, in a public arena. It is a high-energy work, presenting the dynamics of three characters. The installation represents the remains of what occurred, the debris from the previous nights happenings. The three characters debrief, they continue to make things work while in a state of mess, carrying on regardless. They try to gain total clarity, by piecing together the events of the previous night and putting everything in its place, while dealing with the part they can’t remember. Eventually a darker side is revealed and the good times turn sour.
 

Review

Chloe Smethurst - The Age
Referencing big nights out, hangovers and cartoonish violence, high maintenance is a dance installation with a sense of humour.

Designed by Shio Otani, the performance space is strewn with balloons, streamers and party debris, while the audience is handed party hats and blowers on entry. Seated on the floor around the studio tooting and laughing, the audience is immediately drawn into the party atmosphere. And it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt.

Jo Lloyd and her performing collaborators, Tim Harvey and Luke Goerge, have created dance that vacillates between pumping party energy and the often messy, occasionally painful aftermath.

The comical imagery in the work comes directly from real life. The three performers give their best pardoy of a night club dance routine, hips thrust forward, lips puting, while Harvey, a blanket thrown over his head, stomps around shoving empty bottles and half-eaten lamingtons into a box, then throws it, disgusted at George's feet.

The humour is balanced with serious sequences as the characters try to piece together the previous night's events. Visions of aggression and alcohol-fuelled violence reveal the darker side of the night's excess.

The choreography is somewhat abstracted, heavily dosed with Lloyd's post-modern, pedestrian inspired moves. Wrestling, pacing or delicately manipulating, the dancers have terrific physical ability and a uniformity of purpose.

Duane Morrison's soundtrack is superbly suited to the action, featuring reflective moments among the funky dancefloor numbers.