Dance Better at Parties – Sydney Theatre Company

Dance Better at Parties, a two-hander by writer/director Gideon Obarzanek, with choreography and dance instruction by Jessica Prince, is a fly-on-the-wall piece that follows Dave (Steve Rodgers), a middle-aged man, who takes private Latin dance classes from Rachel (Elizabeth Nabben), saying he just wants to dance better at parties.

Once past the foundations of the plot laid out in the title of the piece, this series of very human vignettes takes us through the ten-week course of classes and through to the gala on the other side, where a certificate is handed out and the cycle of adult skill-based learning is ostensibly complete. We observe Dave’s stiff hips and loneliness, and meet the seemingly vivacious, somewhat vulnerable Rachel.

As we view the play through the eyes of Dave, we feel his catharses deeply, viscerally and knowingly; he is fully realised and exceedingly likable, a box step and a sweaty t-shirt away from being any one of us, just clinging to another person, to a memory, to a sense of connection that we all long for.

Where the play falls down it also where it greatly succeeds: in that human approach. If Dave is our avatar, then we never really can glimpse into Rachel’s mind and life for any length of time, no matter how much we may want to – even when she is alone onstage. Those few moments when Rachel is alone onstage she is luminous and intriguing, because these are the moments when we realise that she is real too, with her own trauma and her own, perhaps, sense of disconnection. It’s a pity, then,  that even when she exists independently of Dave it feels as though all we are seeing is his mind filling in the blanks of what happens when he isn’t around, at best – or at worst, another case of a woman onstage existing solely to service a male character’s evolution.

That’s the failure. The second edge of this double-edged sword and its strength in limiting her character is that as people we are naturally self-involved and somewhat myopic; Dave is in his own pain and doesn’t necessarily have a need to investigate hers; we are all supporting players in everyone’s life except our own, and so is Rachel to Dave. It’s truthful if he is truly our window to the play and that provides a satisfactory response within the confines of the play for her limited development, but still, it would have been really something to know more about her, to have two simultaneous journeys offered up for consideration: two fully-formed pictures of the fragile and complex human experience.

As dance theatre this piece is both clever and delightful; as Dave loosens up so does his dancing and his overall demeanour, leading to a great comic scene where he envisions himself, post-rehearsal, on his very own So You Think You Can Dance. Latin dance is a great conceptual choice for the story since chemistry between partners is downright vital, and Prince has turned the actors into more than able dancers; Nebbin in particular has a natural, somewhat ethereal grace.

Moving and dynamic and different, Dance Better at Parties is another example of STC’s successful programming of the two Wharf theatres; their imports and independent, mold-breaking pieces are often the most exciting parts of the STC season. For a somewhat gentle and poignant play, this one packs a punch – its real value is in how long it will stay with you.