Odyssea by Quicksilver Dance with C-Arts. Created, choreographed, and performed by Mariah Steele. Videography and editing by Hans Rinderknecht.
Book at: https://www.brightonfringe.org/events/odyssea/
“This dance-on-film follows the epic journey of a curious sea traveller as she encounters flora and fauna in fantastical realms. New York-based Quicksilver Dance perform with only their hands, painted to become vibrant characters.
Across biomorphic landscapes of sculptures and fabric and set to original music, Odyssea offers a feminist take on the concept of an odyssey: she makes her way by helping fellow travellers, building relationships and trading, rather than through the mythologically typical (male) approaches of strength, trickery or intrigue.
This playful and poignant tale of encountering difference promises to make the familiar feel excitingly unfamiliar again.”
Quicksilver Dance’s Odyssea makes the human hand the focus for the storytelling, creating a collection of characters which have physical grace and emotional reach.
With just the addition of decoration or paint, the characters become real and strangely complicated, no more just a hand but the epitome of how we relate to each other.
Creator, choreographer and performer Mariah Steele has created a story in which people help each other to find their goals, and achieves this with just a slight move of a finger or a wrist.
We know these figures and empathise with them. We care about the things they care about and root for them through their challenges.
What we see in Odyssea has been seen before in animation, but there is a deep vein of humanity in watching these disembodied hands portraying the woman who barters, wheedles, tricks and helps along the way.
Yoshiko Arahata’s musical score gives urgency and understanding to this piece, which isn’t dance in the conventional sense.
If it is a dance at all, it is a dance of life, an exploration of movement and touch, the brushing of one hand against another, a frisson of connection.
The world created by Raphaela McCormack’s mixed media of sea and land is clearly fake and yet real in its persuasive magic. It tells a story of a woman’s strength and resilience.
Lia Nelson and Anna Remus are the additional performers in this storytelling. It seems strange to mention their grace, clarity and precision from just hand movements, but Odyssea is clever, vibrant, and poignant storytelling captured at its very best.
*****