Reviews of DARK TOURISTS

Dark Tourists is painfully well-named. Bleak and dislocated and caustic and critical and sharp and sinewy and voyeuristic and nihilistic and darkly comic and absolutely stunning. Its territory is a mix of Hieronymus Bosch, Bill Hammond and Samuel Beckett, in a post-modern, post-Al Gore era.

There is a white crane for peace but somebody eats it. Be warned, and be there.

Malia Johnston and Emma Willis have co-directed the work which proceeds in episodes of dance, text, music, song and sound effects (composition, Eden Mulholland). There is atmospheric design with sets that are rarely still (lighting, Paula van Beeck).  

The cast have command of many episodes of troubled nerves, surreal violence and pockets of graceful redemption.  Oh how grateful one is for the lissome beauty of dancers Paul Young, Claire Lissaman and Julia Milsom, who are allowed to dance like terns and gannets from time to time, which counteracts the acting out of mugging and murder and mindless whatever. 

Peter Daube and Sean MacDonald time their every move as though animated. MacDonald's epilogue "chaconne", follows the time-honoured theatrical convention of that form but with a contemporary vocabulary of disjointed rhythm. It alone is worth seeing the show for - a post-Petrouchka rap by a dislocated hoodie who can't see any way out. 

We are instructed to leave nothing but our emotional footprints. We do as we are told. 

Auckland season reviews

NB: After premiering at AK07, Dark Tourists received passionately divided responses. Most publically, the NZ Herald dance critic, Bernadette Rae, described the work as 'the most boring show on earth', as well as 'spastic' and 'ugly.' This review sparked a flurry of debate over the work. Further reviews in the Sunday Star-Times, Lumiere Reader, on Thetareview and Sidestep and on RadioNZ, continued to put forth strong and divided opinions about the work.

"Profound and intelligent" - Raewyn Whyte, National Radio

"Powerful, evocative, moving and beautiful, this seamless collaboration between playwright / dramatist Emma Willis and choreographer Malia Johnston is ephemeral in craft and themes."
-- Alexa Wilson, Theatreview
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A dance tourist responds to Dark Tourists
"The essence of 'Dark Tourists' is everything I have come to crave in performance art - rich subtext, interconnected themes and serious social commentary for the mind, a sympathetic, a well crafted soundscore for the ears, and movement to satisfy the eyes - the possibility of fully engaging the senses, mind and soul within an artwork..."
- Derek Tearne, Sidestep
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