Amidst the innocence of child’s play there can often be found sinister undercurrents of violence, fantasy and imaginative genius. In 2009, dancer and choreographer Delia Brett saw those layers in the drawings of her then-young son, Beckett, and was inspired to create.
The result was plaything, a darkly innovative, collaborative dance work that explored the imagination of a child and the contrasts of motherhood.
“We were looking primarily at the drawings of my son in his early years, you know, kindergarten to age eight,” says Brett, speaking by phone last week. “Exploring all these different ways that we could investigate the drawings [with dance] – in particular the subject of imaginative violence versus real violence, and all the different ways that plays out in the mother-child relationship.”
Already a compelling concept, Brett, and her rule-breaking company, MACHiNENOiSY, which she directs with mononymous Vancouver dance icon Daelik, were not content to just leave plaything at that, however.
“Our gateway was my son’s drawings,” she explains, “but as the title, plaything, suggests, it was kind of this objectification bordering on violence between objects, materials and people, as well.”
To achieve this, Brett – known for her work with Brief Encounters, Dances for a Small Stage and the PuSh Festival – brought together a slew of other creatives to help bring this twisted tale to life. With its sense-heightening use of multimedia art, plaything thus pulls its audience deeply into the dreamlike world of boyhood imagination, referencing everything from Atari to Pixar to LEGO’s Bionicles. Brett’s choreography melds with Tamara Unroe’s shadow puppetry and marionettes, Jay White’s animations and illustrations and Chris Kelly’s atmospheric score. Beauty emerges from the mundane as the charismatic dancer transforms herself into robots and aliens in shadow, or leaves an all-black body suit behind for the vulnerability of being completely naked.
It’s a solo performance, assisted by the many artists behind the scenes.
After two years in creation, plaything premiered in 2011 to solid reviews, and after years of waiting patiently for an opportunity to perform it again, Brett has been invited to restage it at the 10th anniversary of Dance In Vancouver – a five-day celebration of contemporary dance featuring work by BC artists such as Brett, Shay Kuebler, Ziyian Kwan, Jennifer Mascall, and Vanessa Goodman at the Scotiabank Dance Centre on Davie Street Nov. 18-22. (There is also an intimate, site-specific performance series by battery opera productions that takes place entirely in a hotel room at the Holiday Inn downtown.)
A few things have changed since plaything first came out, though. For one, the original set has been lost, meaning they had to start from scratch on the design. Secondly, Brett’s son is now too big to play his part.
“My son, who was 10 when we performed it is 14 now and he’s six feet tall. So we can’t use him anymore – he’s not so cute,” she laughs.
And, four years later, Brett can now reflect on the impact of plaything.
“It was a bold step,” says Brett. “I had already collaborated with Tamara on another production, called He was swimming the other way, and that particular show had a little bit of the same style: a little bit creepy and a little bit playful. But plaything was a big step, production value-wise. And I feel like plaything gave me a lot of confidence in my vision and how MACHiNENOiSEY is doing something that no one else in this town is doing.”
• plaything runs Nov. 21 at 8pm at the Scotiabank Dance Centre (667 Davie). Tickets start at $22; For more on Dance In Vancouver, got to TheDanceCentre.ca.
