OzAsia Festival: Not According To Plan

The Artistic team of Not According To Plan – Leigh Warren, Khai Liew, Alistair Trung, Jerome Kugan, Geoff Cobham and Helen Fuller come together with an artistic brilliance equalled only by the performers Rebecca Jones, Aiden Munn, Yuan-Li Wang, Chien-Wei Wu and the ever-popular Xiao-Xiong Zhang.

Music, dance, costumes, scenography, poetry, personal stories and even the props (design furniture) combine to present an exquisite portrayal of the extraordinary life and achievements of Cambodian émigré Zhang.

Zhang left Cambodia for China in 1971 before settling in Australia in 1983. Warren choreographs the difficulties and ultimate success of Zhang’s life with a moving, humorous and elegant show which held the capacity audience of the Space Theatre in awe for it’s entire 60 minutes.

The show begins with a dishevelled, elderly man searching for comfort in a bleak landscape. The elderly man is of course Zhang and if he found comfort, thankfully (for the rest of us), he found it in Dance.

The 55-year-old Zhang still moves with a sublime grace and beauty. One of the highlights of the show is an enchanting and at times tongue-in-cheek encounter where Zhang and another dancer compliment each other’s moves on stage.

[pull_left]Everything goes to plan in Not According To Plan; it is the stroke of genius of the 2013 OzAsia Festival[/pull_left]

Warren’s Choreography is his best in many years and Geoff Cobham’s Lighting design is an equally sublime feature of the show, he is a credit to the Adelaide Festival Centre.

Alistair Trung’s costumes are elegant, intelligent and quite simply perpetuate the magnificence of this show as does Khai Liew’s overall set and on stage designs.

The old and young dancers, the changes of pace, the differing styles of music, voice-overs from Zhang, the costumes, the lighting, the choreography, the poetry and the visuals on the backdrop all combine to produce a show that is high art at its best.

Everything goes to plan in Not According To Plan; it is the stroke of genius of the 2013 OzAsia Festival.