FOUNTAIN by Phillip Adams - RISING Arts Festival

Presented by VCA Dance and Design and Production Students as part of RISING Festival 2025

Natalie Hardy was a dancer and performer in ‘Fountain,’ choreographed for 17 VCA Dance Company dancers by Phillip Adams. ‘Fountain’ deviates from and queers the foundations of basic contemporary dance works by merging voice/dialogue, acting, movement, and prop work. Phillip Adams employed the dancers to be in character and perform before/as the audience walks inside the venue with movement material based on the late 1900’s high-intensity aerobic workouts. Juxtaposing the ecstatic and manic themes displayed in the beginning aerobic workout, the theme of competitiveness came into play using audition processes as a framework, where the social hierarchies of director and dancer, seen in Richard Attenborough’s ‘A Chorus Line’ (1985), were queered in an absurd and comedic manner. The second half of ‘Fountain’ began exploring human relationships and Catholicism/religion through themes of repetition and euphoria. Dancers were asked to aggressively shout dialogue, and scream at lettuce (prop element) to explore Alan Parker’s ‘FAME’ (1980) and Jesús Franco Manera’s ‘Venus in Furs’ (1969) to represent the tense relationships between characters auditioning for the same role while providing dancers with a euphoric exploration after experiencing the aggressiveness and psychological troubles of the earlier sections.

In this work, Natalie Hardy explored interdisciplinary practices and workshopped ways of merging acting/theatre with dance to genuinely represent the the themes of physical exhaustion and psychological endurance throughout the three-act series. By completing a high-intensity workout for 30-minutes straight, pushing other dancers over/tripping over them, and yelling at lettuce with a comedic dialogue, meant that Natalie explored ways of making something that was traumatic into something of a silly and manic experience for the audience, while learning to separate their professional working/dancing body to their personal life.

For more information visit VCA’s Website:
https://finearts-music.unimelb.edu.au/showcase/fountain


Photos by Gregory Lorenzutti