Filigree and Shadow
Birds in a Hurricane.
Filigree and Shadow was designed to be a catharsis for aggression. Many ideas went into this, but the most resonant is the story of birds surviving a hurricane. Rather than trying to escape the storm, they fly directly into it, funnelled upward to the relatively calm air above. Here, they drift, sometimes hundred of kilometres off course, but alive. The action of these birds informed the design of the set, and their braving of the hurricane served as a strong metaphor for the creation of the dance.
"A lot of my work is designed around people and their movements - how they move in a space - and there's a lot of parallels in how I design a space and how a choreographer designs a dancers movements. It’s about a space, having these dancers move through this volume and being in tension and harmony with the space.” - Kelvin Ho.
The set consists of a 10m long curved wall set inside two flat panels to conceal the stage wings – essentially transforming the stage into a minimalistic white box.
Originally part of the 20:21 Australian Ballet 2015 program, and the Houston Ballet's 2018 Rock, Roll & Tutus program, Filigree and Shadow closed the opening night of the Australian Ballet's 2018 Verve program.
Choreography by Tim Harbour, Set by Kelvin Ho, Music by 38Nord, and lighting by Benjamin Cistern.