Note: this is a review of the 2022 Sydney Festival performance of Yung Lung. The Melbourne season of the same production is showing at the Substation, Newport.
Hedonism is a difficult beast to cage. Especially so in an era where dancing and singing are legally restricted. But if the circumstances of the premiere season of Chunky Move’s Yung Lung are less than ideal, this Sydney Festival outing is at least a more promising launch pad than the two Melbourne festivals (Rising and DanceX) that were supposed to host its debut before their unfortunate cancellations.
And yet, it’s hard not to feel that audiences require just the right conditions to fully engage with this brave and brazen exaltation of rave culture – it’s tough to imagine you’re worshipping at the altar of techno when an usher reminds you at the door that you’re not allowed to break a shape.
Which is a shame, because the promise of Antony Hamilton’s “hybrid party/performance” feels tantalisingly close, even when viewed standing still. Bass beats that rattle our organs are already thumping as the audience files in. There are no seats (save for a couple of raked stands at either end of Carriageworks’ Bay 17 for those who need a rest), but rather a space to process around a central idol – a trippy stone deity assembled from colossal faces, with a ‘90s paint job and fluorescent tube accessories. Overhead, a halo of TV screens play skittering Matrix-esque visuals while red searchlights pan wildly around the auditorium. It’s a dystopian fever dream of hyperstimulation that barely lets up for the next hour.
Hamilton’s cast of fresh-faced ravers oscillate between serpentine sensuality and robotic semaphore. It’s the vocabulary of a rave dancefloor, used to write physical haikus – small cells of interlocking gestures that merge and unlace like the mechanisms of a clockwork puppet. While one plain of this show operates in the visceral space of performance, another flies forth from the realm of digital ephemera. The overhead screens churn through clips of ‘90s pop culture, memes from the early internet, schlocky B-movie horror, and a whole lot of similar content that I can’t quite recall on account of the clips changing at near-light speed. Both creatively and referentially, this schtick sticks pretty quick, but after the 30th or 40th minute of a Clockwork Orange visual hazing, the video elements start to feel entirely too attention seeking.
Audiences are encouraged to wander the space, which is necessary if you want to experience as much of this production as possible, although a comprehensive viewing is all but impossible given that there are times when interesting business is taking place on opposite sides of the central monolith. Which begs the question: how much of the action is important to an audience’s appreciation of the work, and how much is intended as vamping for time? Again, it’s a reminder that the audience is meant to be just as much a part of this bacchanal as the cast.
The seven performers not only look the part – club kid couture and asymmetrical haircuts all present and accounted for – but they also possess superhuman stamina. There are only a few relatively short sequences when individuals have the opportunity to catch their breath, yet every step is delivered with faces etched with uber-cool naunchelance. Even more impressive is the quiet brilliance thrumming just below the surface. While there aren’t many moments when their most conspicuous abilities are set loose (although there are certainly a handful of places where you can appreciate the years they’ve spent honing their physical dexterity) the musicality and coordination required to orient themselves within a score as relentless as sound designer Chiara Kickdrum’s is nothing short of Olympian.
Indeed, the audience has to draw on similar levels of endurance. Between the 360-degree action, the many decibeled doof-doofs, and the merciless barrage of screen time, the collective effect becomes ever more numbing over time. While this show can boast an abundance of cool, the dance is somehow just too filtered, lacking the joy and danger and zero-fucks-given, gurning-faced abandon of rave, which leaves the overall experience feeling emotionally hollow.
But perhaps, once again, this is what the pandemic has robbed from Yung Lung. For a few minutes, I step to the back of the hall for a wider vantage. The scene of stationary people staring accusingly at the writhing bodies in front of them looks like a Salem witch trial in the town from Footloose. If only we could have had an invite to the party as well.