LGI/

“The beginnings of Corridor were sparked by a passage from Kafka’s book, The Castle. It was a very detailed description of two servants handing out files to officials who were behind various doors in a hallway.

One of my primary interests in choreography is to ask the question, ‘what are the particular strengths of dance as a communicative form, particularly in contrast to language?’

So, the starting point for this work was to make a direct transcription from the written words in the novel into movement to see what was gained and what was lost.

Rather than finding an interesting representation of the Kafka text, which is now all but gone, what emerged from this exercise was the idea of generating movement from language. I became interested in the very different physicality that the body assumed when responding spontaneously to verbal instructions.

This interest is not in trying to translate language into dance, but in the different physicality, dynamics and focus which the dancer takes on when mind and body process a constant stream of information.

Corridor is built from hundreds of instructions devised by myself and the dancers. These range from straightforward physical ones like, ‘Bend all joints sharply’ to much more interpretive ones like, ‘You are Usain Bolt doing a naked victory dance’. It is about the physicality of transmission, rather than the considered and refined moves of rehearsed choreography.

In the corridor, the performers are the receivers and receptors of information both important and trivial and they respond willingly or fearfully. The instructions are mostly delivered quickly and in succession, allowing minimal time for interpretation, and provoking a spontaneous reaction unique to the individual dancer. The modes of transmission also vary, from mobile phones, written text, iPods and verbal instructions.

As a viewer, we do not need to always know what these instructions are. They may seem to come from private thoughts or from external sources. The choreography comes from the response of the performers and how they react to the density of commands.

The instructions are drawn from many sources, but there is a focus on the obsessions of popular media. Fears about health, cancer, foods and diet are recurrent along with perceptions of the body and how it could be altered.

The instructions are also taken from the private anxieties that this environment generates, both about our own body and its wellbeing in an increasingly fragile environment. We may feel that we have some control over our physical selves but increasingly, as the problems of our world loom larger, our efforts to help can seem small and ineffectual.

There is too much to respond to and the impossibility of this task can immobilise us.”

Lucy Guerin

Continued from main section:

A sense of chaos is conveyed throughout the dance; at one point the dancers move in duets, at another point two become enclosed within glass panels.

According to dance critic Deborah Jowitt, “the six remarkable, unforgettable performers rise from among the spectators one by one, cued by their ringing cell phones… the movement becomes stranger and stranger, as the dancers begin to travel through space” (The Village Voice, 2009).

The audience experience in Corridor is unconventional, with each spectator viewing the show from a different vantage point as the dancers move up and down the narrow performance area. Small speakers under the audience’s chairs play different ambient sounds that were recorded in public spaces around Melbourne by composer Haco. Each audience member hears different sounds, creating a personal relationship between them and the performance itself.

Reflecting on the relationship between audience and performance, Lucy Guerin stated that “you get very intimate, up-close contact with the dancers…giving them [the audience] a sense that they are inside of it rather than watching from a distance” (Critical Correspondence, 2008).

Following its premiere in Melbourne, Corridor traveled to the United States in 2009 for performances in New York and Philadelphia. Critical reviews of Corridor drew attention to the complexities and hidden meanings within the performance: “The dancing is delivered with dynamic precision and commitment” wrote New York critic Roslyn Sulcas, “never liberating us from the uneasy sense that a particular meaning lurks, undiscovered” (New York Times, 2009). Critic Robert Johnson wrote that Corridor is “a place for wishes, fantasies and fears and, in the darkness, an existential No Man’s Land” (New Jersey Times, 2009).

Dance blogger Tonya Plank concluded that “there was so much going on in this piece… which is one of the things I liked about it” (Tonya Plank blog, 2009).

– ‘Lucy Guerin’s Kafkaesque Foucauldian Corridor’ by Tonya Plank (2008)
– ‘Lucy Guerin Inc in Corridor’ by Lisa Kraus (2009)

View a range of archival material related to this work in the LGI Digital Collection on the Theatre and Dance Platform at the University of Melbourne.