Somewhere in between, strong performers, great design and potent images yield a performance language of great power and promise. Wouters’ design acumen, her lighting and the poetry and precision of Wilson’s directing in tandem with their joint choreography have wrought a memorable work from a strong cast.
– Keith Gallasch in RealTime, Dec ’04 – Jan 05 No.64
Human traffic negotiates super bright lights, shiny surfaces and booming noise. In the shopping plaza, bodies clash in shifting scenarios within a theatre of everyday reality.
Plaza Real is a physical theatre work investigating diversity, ethnicity and cultural resistance within the heart of a corporate-owned public space. The absence of a community-controlled village square leaves the shopping plaza as the last social space – the ultimate urban entertainment destination. It is here that an emerging ethnic intermixture fiercely competes for self-representation.
The performers have a vitality that is intensely raw and physical. Idiosyncratic movement intersects with do-or-die recklessness.
Confrontation develops into an anarchic, whirling chase around the performing space that is no doubt as tightly choreographed as it appears to be raw and wild.
Jill Sykes, in The Sydney Morning Herald, October 2-3, 2004
performers/devisers
Martin del Amo
Valerie Berry
Emma J Cooper
Keith Lim
NOMISe
Lee Wilson
direction/choreography
Lee Wilson
set/lighting/
costumes/choreography
Mirabelle Wouters
dramaturgy
Alicia Talbot
sound artist
Phil Downing
Trailer
Opening Season
Performance Space, Sydney
30 September – 10 October 2004
Plaza Real was developed with the support of The Australia Council for the Arts, Arts NSW Urban Theatre Projects, University of Western Sydney and Performance Space.
