"The Mystery of The Disappearing Body"
Directed by Guy Ryan

Inspired by the film noir detective movies of the 40s and 50s, The Mystery of the Disappearing Body is a stylish and sophisticated new dance production that is premiering in Auckland at the end of May 2005. Mystery features new music and projected visuals by electronic wizards Charlotte 90 and Andrew Lambert - the team that helped create The Fall Guy - and four of New Zealand's finest dance artists including Ryan, Malia Johnston (NZ Listener best contemporary dancer and choreographer - 2004) and Sarah Sproull (Clockwork Orange, Angels with Dirty feet)."The Mystery of The Disappearing Body"
Directed by Guy Ryan

Inspired by the film noir detective movies of the 40s and 50s, The Mystery of the Disappearing Body is a stylish and sophisticated new dance production that is premiering in Auckland at the end of May 2005. Mystery features new music and projected visuals by electronic wizards Charlotte 90 and Andrew Lambert - the team that helped create The Fall Guy - and four of New Zealand's finest dance artists including Ryan, Malia Johnston (NZ Listener best contemporary dancer and choreographer - 2004) and Sarah Sproull (Clockwork Orange, Angels with Dirty feet).In part influenced by the iconic image of the 'dead body' at a crime scene and its white chalk outline, Mystery will explore and sample personal and assumed identities, characters and environments, with the concept of the disappearing body applying to bodies as lost, concealed, abducted, transformed or murdered. In Ryan's innovative style it will weave together potent and poetic visual imagery, subtle comedy and an exquisite vocabulary of new dance.

Guy Ryan is one of NZ's leading dancer / choreographers. Having just finished dancing in Michael Parmenter's Commotion retrospective tour, he has an extensive performance background that includes work throughout NZ, in Australia, England, Ireland, Belgium and Switzerland. In 2004, he presented a major solo work The Fall Guy in Auckland and Wellington, choreographed for the NBR NZ Opera production of Carmen, performed in Kristian Larsen's major STAB commisson show Certainty and co-directed and performed in Terrain, winning the "best production award" at the Wellington Fringe.

"The Fall Guy points to a new dance genre being created by a generation of techno-savvy choreographers"
(Dominion Post 2004)

Venue: The Auckland Performing Arts Centre.
(TAPAC), 100 motions Road, Western Springs

Season: 8 nights, May 20-28
(No show Mon 23rd)

Ticket Prices: Full $20 / Concession $15

Bookings: Response Ticketing 300 3700 -

www.response.co.nz

Choreographer/Director: Guy Ryan / Outlaw Creative
Co Producer: Michele Powles / Outlaw Creative
Co Producer: Malia Johnston / Outlaw Creative
Musical Director/Composer: Charlotte 90
Set: Guy Ryan, Grant Wackrow / Outlaw Creative
AV: Andrew Lambert
Lighting: Thomas Clarkson
Dancers: Guy Ryan, Sarah Sproull, Paora Taurima, Malia Johnston
Costume: Elizabeth Whiting

Review Excerpts

NZ Listener December 25-31 2004 Francesca Horsley
Excerpt from article titled "The Best of dance 2004"

Best Contemporary Dance Production - .
Second: Terrain, by Guy Ryan and Malia Johnston. Set in a confined theatrical space, Terrain was an intimate, intense exploration of place distance and scale. It took iconic mid-20th-centuray modernism and deconstructed it for a 21st-century audience, shifting the boundaries between performer and viewer, permanence and travel, engagement and distraction.

NZ Listener December 11 2004 Francesca Horsley
From article titled "Luminous even in the darkness"

- Terrain, by Guy Ryan and Malia Johnston, was a highly conceptual work that toyed with place, distance, scale and imagery. Captivating and beautifully realised, it explored representations of displacement, power and nostalgia - constructed and deconstructed on a small platform of wooded squares, covered with artificial grass. An audience of 30 sat close to the work, creating an intimacy that removed traditional barriers of performer and viewer. The work was modernistic, with iconic representations from the 1950's and 1960s: model cars, boats, a bus, toy tank, a simple train set, vinyl records of protest songs and vintage music from the radio request shows. The vivid green square carried powerful connotations - suburban lawn, pool table, golf course, White house front lawn. But the dance was not all aloof abstraction. A duet between Ryan and Johnston was full of dexterous and inventive lifts, turns and balances and was a joy to watch.

Dominion Post Tue March 2 2004 Jennifer Shennan
From article entitled "Poignant and powerful performances bring a touch of sunshine"

On an even smaller stage in the Adam Art gallery, Guy Ryan and Malia Johnston, from Auckland, presented Terrain, an impeccably proportioned little dance which conveyed themes of huge import. A mobile wood platform is frequently choreographed into the action. Simple props reflect landscape and a bodyscape many times larger than the provided means of transport (toy model cars, bus, train and hand-puppets), creating the impression of a Gulliver-like world with Lilliput and Brobdignag inhabited simultaneously. The audience is limited to 14, lined in rows along two sides of a square, like a council of citizens observing a microcosm of their city's life and the story of its inhabitants. The dance movement is clean and strong, and miraculously contained, full of risk but without any hint of bravura. Powerful feats of balance are sustained as if in a quest for equilibrium in a human life in a relationship or a society. Away somewhere is a far off dreadful war, hinted at with only a tiny toy gun and a song, but the more evocatively for that. The wonderful fresco by Lorenzetti in 13th century Siena, The Allegory of good government, hovered in my mind as a related image, prompted no doubt by the backdrop to this performance a McCahon canvas with a large AM, and the prophetic words, Teach us to order the days rightly. Terrain is moving to another festival venue. Check your Fringe booklet for details to become one of the elect 14 in the audience for this treasure. It deserves a season in every art gallery, architecture studio and college art department in New Zealand.

Capital Times Wed March 10, 2004 Deidre Tarrant
Article entitled "Meticulous and minimalist"

TERRAIN stated that its aim was to engage a limited audience in a choreography of the environment. Meticulous and minimalist, this work succeeds and then some. The balancing act between urban and rural, childhood and maturity, reality and aspiration was beautifully translated into movement by Malia Johnston and Guy Ryan, who conceived, choreographed and performed the work. Clever use of childhood building blocks and the relentless continuity of existence were summoned by a toy train constantly circling in its confined space bound by its rails. A toy tank conjured up an entire siege and miniature vehicles were shifted as the bigger landscape changed. Johnston's gloriously articulated spine reminded us of the potential and beauty of mankind. Terrain was effective and memorable, a gem in a festival.

Otago Daily Times, Tues Oct 5th 2004 pg 6 by Suzanne Renner
Article Titled "Engaging physical theatre

Terrain is 40 minutes of engaging physical theatre and dance, that juxtaposes a miniature world reminiscent of childhood, with images and transformations suggestive of larger landscape that is precarious and threatening. In the intimate space of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery auditorium, Guy Ryan and Malia Johnston immediately drew the small audience in with their subtle humour, attention to detail and feats of balance. A moveable floor and toys were used to create different environments and structures within which the performers became part of the terrain or danced with controlled abandon. Upside balances on wooden blocks and a dance segment composed of sweeping gestures and circles were skilful demonstrations of the power and beauty of shape and motion. While many of the scenes in this work evoked a world that was simple and innocent, accompanying musical lyrics and a toy tank aimed at the performers hinted at death and war. The perilous ending amidst a benign cityscape was an enduring image."

Otago Daily Times, Tues Oct 5th 2004 pg 6 by Staff Reporter
Article titled: "Balance and tiny props in performance"

They balanced on the yoga blocks, wobbling every now and then on the too-soft floor. "It's a real gut- buster," Outlaw Creative choreographer Guy Ryan, a University of Otago physical education graduate, said as he dropped back on to the astro-turf mat. "You forget how much it demands when you haven't done it for a few weeks." Ryan and choreographer partner Malia Johnston were preparing for last night's performance of Terrain, a multi award-winning combination of miniature toys, and second-hand records. Tiny Props, including the toy cars and model tanks of Ryan's childhood, are manipulated along with the dancer's bodies to create a microcosm of city life, and to examine the relationship between people and landscape. The choreographers said they wanted to create an intimate show that could fit on a 3 sq m stage, that would break the "fourth wall" between the planned 30-strong audience and the performers and that could fit in the back of Ryan's Toyota Town Ace van. Johnston, who has just finished as choreographer for the World of Wearable Arts in Nelson, said the pair were so close to the audience they could feel their reaction. "This is supposed to go further than the traditional theatre-based work that says the audience is over there and we are over here she," she said of a show the pair have been asked to perform at private residences. Last night's appearance on the Otago Festival of the Arts programme was also a chance for Ryan to perform in the city where, as a young physical education student, he first learned dance under Helen Bray in the early 1990's. Ryan was also a member of Dance Arts, the university's contemporary dance group, and had his first experience of performing in the capping show. He remembered little of the experience, except that he was dressed in 'flowing green and decidedly uncool costumes of the type that often gives contemporary dance a bad name". "Thankfully, things have changed," he said. Terrain finishes on Thursday.

www.danznet.co.nz/sidestep archive of NZ dance writings
Strobe - Performed at the Concert Chamber April 2003

UNITEC'S 're-ignite/The Inter-Lab Residency' was another well-attended gem. This collaboration between choreographer Guy Ryan and Peter Vosper produced a true multi-media work. Big screens occupied the stage, used as props for 'landscaping' the stage, but more importantly for video projections of computer generated galactic patterns, which then were superimposed by dancing figures. These animated dancers were echoed later in the piece by some dancers, who wore an 'armour' of bands on their body, which illuminated in the darkness to make them look almost the same as the animation. This piece impressed with atmospheric music and lighting, plus sophisticated use of technology. A truly mesmerising experience!

The Dominion Post, Monday March 3 2003, Jenny Stevenson. From review of Wellington Fringe performance of "Drift"

"The obvious highlight (of Drift) was a tender duet between Johnston and Ryan that showed off their technique and style - a small taste of potentially strong material. As a partnerhip they work together easily with no subjugation of each dancer's individual style."

Waikato Times Monday 1-7-2002 Page 2, Review of "Fracture" by Rosemary Robertson.

"It's a real pleasure to get a glimpse of the creative range of two very promising new choreographers. Malia Johnston and Guy Ryan demonstrated in Weather Vain People and Fracture that such talent can reap rich rewards. Their challenging choreography relied on strong dancers to present the ideas and images they worked with. The dancers revealed a real sense of trust in their choreographers and their fellow performers. Music and design were also integral to the success of the works, along with first-class costumes."

"Fracture was a horse of another colour, complete with racing commentary. Elements of the cross in turn separated, linked and confined participants in the race of life and time. Jesus Copy and his companions juggled with the fine balance that exists in the dance of life and death. Unitec influence on many of the performers and designers associated with Fracture must be acknowledged. Without that incubator of talent, programmes such as Fracture might not be possible."

The Irish Times, Thursday Sep 13-9-2001, by Paul Clancy

A fascinating exploration of the rituals of Christmas and Easter - Michael Keegan-Dolan and his performers explore deep issues and take many risks - Fabulous Beast's world is surreal and anarchic, its inhabitants never finding an easy path to redemption. Dance and visual imagery are used to portray the cruelty of fate and human nature. The performers are all excellent - Guy Ryan is very effective as Jesus - Christmas show must be experienced."

WOW! Theatre website - Ireland, Review of "The Christmas Show" 19-9-2001

"There's plenty to unpack in Michael Keegan-Dolan's depiction of the holiday season, and certainly no lack of beautiful imagery, movement and song to keep the audience connected to the action on stage - The dancers - Rachel Lopez de la Nieta, Alex Leonhartsberger and Guy Ryan - execute their moves with incredible strength and beauty, and play their many parts with great energy - that there is beauty underneath all the alarm clocks, the fought-over packages, and the random kitsch is the biggest gift of all that the company presents to us."

From the review of 3D in the Listener, May 5-11-2001, by Marianne Schultz.

"White Noise by Guy Ryan for ADC(Auckland Dance Company) displays the most interesting dance vocabulary of the evening. His dancers seem to be speaking a language of symbols and gestures that resonate in the space around them. Ryan is an intelligent choreographer whose inventiveness and eye for detail bodes well for future works from him."

From the review of "Red Shift" in the City Voice, 2-3-2000, by Melanie Hamilton

"Quantum Flux fairly flew into our heads with their title work Red Shift. Set to music of Johnathan Besser and Ross Harris, the work was complex, uplifting and exhausting - transfixing in its complex (and successful) interplay of emotional states"

" - an inspiring show and a great reminder that dance is alive and well in this country"