Noroc! explores life in the gaps between cultures, on the boundaries of languages. It is a highly visual, movement-based work, which through the layering of text, sound, music, song, snippets of languages, installation and visuals tells the overlapping stories of four women displaced in Australia by their foreign-ness and in the countries of their mother- tongues by their Australian-ness. Do they have to reinvent themselves to live their new lives - or do they become more of who they were?
Those of us who have become a collage of foreign cultural heritage and contemporary
sensibilities float on the edge of cultural belonging. For some this is agony, for others it's
the rollercoaster we desire. It's an individual affair.
When two or more tongues and their cultural references collide the landscape of
communication is hazardous. .... Miscommunication is inevitable. It is a daily ritual in
which we are engaged. To some degree all of us are lost in translation.
Ultimately, we cannot trust the mind alone to decipher meanfng. As our worlds become
less and less homogeneous we are forced to rely more heavily on intuition and instinct to
interpret the signs and sjgnals of para-language.
Does psychic survival in the land of plenty depend on being fluent in the language of the
soul' Tanya Gerstle
Noroc! explores the consequences of overlapping identities and the role of language as a
flexible resource in constructing meaning and the self. The overlapping stories of four
women who somehow find themselves in Australia unfold through sound and image, and a
healthy dose of black humor
This non-naturalistic work ranges from the highly poetic to the sardonically direct: from the
lateral to the literal. From the threaded bilingual conversations about feeling Australian in
Romania and Romanian in Australia (I don't want to have to tell you, I just want you to
understand), to intertwined recipes for sharing holocaust borscht and family resentment
(keep the suffering simmering for several generations). They explore their relationships to
this place as well as to another reality, whether overseas, across time and generation, or
somewhere inside. The final irony is that English is just as foreign as Armenian,
Romanian, Hebrew or Hindi.
Noroc! aims to:
Noroc! is dense with attitude and images in its exploration of cultural differences and
similarities: for instance, the degree to which body language conveys meaning in spoken
communication and the barriers of cultural stereotyping that melt away under closer
observation.
Death Defying Theatre has been working in this area for five years and there is a sense of
missionary zeal about the vivid unravelling of personal experiences by four distinctive
individuals on stage.
In a program note, director Tanya Gerstle quotes statistics that divide person-to-person
communication into 60 per cent bodylanguage, 33 percent vocal quality and only 7 per cent
the actual content of the words. Such an imbalance between mind and intuition leads her
to ask if psychic survival depends on fluency in the language of the soul.
This is a key to the approach taken by Aida Amirkhanian, Terese Casu, Deborah Leiser
and Michelle St Anne. Movement speaks most clearly in their revelation of innermost
thoughts and memories, even when their telling is also in words. It is also echoed by the
title, Noroc!, which is described as an all-purpose Romanian word for hello, goodbye,
cheers and 'when you don't know what to say'.
Diversity is obvious in every aspect, from cultural background to performance training and
experience. Amirkhanian has worked with Maurice Bejart and Casu has moved from
classical ballet to professional wrestling - when you see her spectacular rolling falls, you
guess where she learned them.
Casu tends to be a showstopper, making much of her comic skills and over-the-top
emotionalism, which she credits to her Romanian ancestry. But Gerstle appears to have
kept a firm directorial hand on the workshop development of the piece, maintaining a
balance between sequences, trimming them to maximum effect and moulding them into a
tight structure.
Sound designer and performer Liberty Kerr makes a vital contribution by playing
everything from tapes and electronic instruments to a bow across a saw and a cello. The
subtlety of Pierre Thibaudeau's designs - crystalline shapes of shattered glass hanging from
the ceiling, more than a hint of origami about the screen for poignant photographic and
celebratory coloured images - brings sophistication and focus to the scattered elements of
the whole. There is much to recommend in Noroc! for anyone who has not seen anything
like it before. For regulars at the Performance Space, it will probably seem like more of
the same. In some respects it is - though the women in petticoats didn't dance the tango
beyond the point of making an audience impact this time around.
While it is perfectly logical that an artist brings the same material to a continuation of her
particular concerns, and there is only a certain distance that a group of performers can go
in devising a work over nine weeks, it is disappointing not to see this interesting area of
theatrical exploration taken further than it is.
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday, 8th April 1996
Cultural differences explored with zeal
Noroc, Performance Space, April 3
by Jill Sykes
Aida Amirkhanian
Akia is a choreographer, performer, and dance teacher who has tourea with the Maurice
Bejart Dance Company. In Australia she has worked with Human Veins Dance Theatre,
Canberra Dance Theatre, and Jigsaw Theatre Company among others. Aida's recent
performances include Mephisto Waltz, Samples, The Group and Jivan.
Terese Casu
From classical dance to professional wrestling! Terese has a diverse training and
background in physical theatre and music. She has worked as an actor, musician, teacher,
puppeteer and performer with many major Australian companies, and studied traditional arts
and music from Eastern European, African and South American cultures.
Tanya Gerstle
Tanya has an honours degree in Theatre Studies, and trained as an actor in Europe and
Australia. Since 1980, she has worked as an actor, director, dramaturg, teacher and theatre
administrator. During five years based in Amsterdam, she directed more than ten solo and
group devised projects in England, Italy and the Netherlands. She is currently co-artistic
director of The Actors Centre, Sydney,
Liberty Kerr
Liberty has performed and engineered in the sound industry for the last 12 years. Her
engineering experience ranges from youth and Aboriginal women's theatre to commercial
productions, live and in studio. Liberty has also produced and engineered CDs for local
artists in Sydney and is currently employed as in-house engineer at Troy House Studios, as
well as freelancing in the local music scene.
Deborah Leiser
Deborah has worked in physical theatre both nationally and internationally. She has trained
with Tadashi Suzuki in Japan and teaches his method, as well as movement for actors. For
the last two years she has been working on her solo show, which will be performed at The
Performance Space in August.
Michelle St Anne
Michelle's film credits include True Happiness This Way Lies, and David Caeser's new
film Idiot Box. Her theatre credits include Not the Narrative at TPS and the reading of I
Wanna Dance like Fred Astaire at The Stables Theatre.
Pierre Thibaudeau
Pierre is both a designer and performer with extensive experience in both fields, principally
with Entr'Acte Theatre of which he is also a co-founder and co-artistic director. Other
design work includes creations for Open City, The Sydney Front, Zoo Tango and Binh Ta
Dui.