UNTRAINED

LUCY GUERIN INC.
UNTRAINED
Directed by Lucy Guerin
Teacher’s Notes and Learning Experiences
for Senior Secondary School Students

Untrained
Four men perform this work. Two of them are highly skilled, experienced dancers and two have no
movement training whatsoever.
Untrained questions our ideas about what is worth watching in a performance. The complex, refined
movements one can do with ease, another can only try and approximate.
All performers are given the same instructions. How they execute them constructs an individual
portrait of each man and also an unavoidable comparison between them. This evolution of
information, built up through units of action, points out what they have in common and where their
physical histories set them apart.
Not your average contemporary dance performance, Untrained is described by its director,
choreographer Lucy Guerin, as a “theatrical exploration”. The work began as a workshop exploring
Lucy’s interest in choreographing for non-dancers. What emerged is a rare and funny insider’s view
into dance as an art form – which, at the same time, demonstrates how our everyday moves expose
who and what we are.
Lucy Guerin Inc.
Lucy Guerin Inc. is a Melbourne-based contemporary dance company established in 2002 to create
and tour new dance works. Renowned for the skill and originality of its small group of performers, it
is a flexible organisation dedicated to challenging and extending the art of contemporary dance.
The company is committed to the exploration of everyday events and the redefinition of the formal
concerns of dance. New productions are generated through an experimental approach to creative
process and may involve voice, video, sound, text and industrial design as well as Guerin’s lucid
physical structures. Crucially, this is always a choreographic exploration, striving for visual, emotional
and physical revelations that could not be generated or communicated in any other artform than
dance.
Lucy Guerin Inc. has been a major influence on the growing identity of Australian dance which stems
from the company’s programmatic research into choreographic practice supported through several
initiatives.
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Director’s Notes
Lucy Guerin
Untrained is a collaborative work devised by two trained dancers, two performers with no dance
training and myself.
Initially in Untrained, I was interested in how non-dancers dealt with choreographed dance steps. It
brought up the question of what we most respond to in a performance. Is it people doing
remarkable things that as an audience member we could never achieve, or our ordinary selves
reflected back at us in a new context?
Untrained is not a dance in the traditional choreographed sense where dancers learn set movements
and do the same thing every time they perform it. Each performer responds to a list of written
instructions and depending on whether they have had a dance background or not, and on their
physical histories their responses to the instructions are different, essentially revealing their physical
natures and to a degree their personalities and the way they approach their lives.
Over the course of making the work we all contributed to the pool of instructions, many of which
showed not only the differences in how the men danced, but in how they did many other things in
which none of them were trained. For the dancers, it seemed that their thinking and the way they
tackled almost everything was explored through the connection they had with their bodies and how
it had been trained. For the non-dancers, it was a leap into the unknown requiring courage and a
sense of humour, with no experience to draw on to achieve the tasks.
We feel admiration for the dancers and non-dancers alike, for different reasons. But whether they
could dance or not, what clearly emerges is a portrait of each man, arrived at through an
examination of their physical selves.
Special thanks to Byron Perry, Antony Hamilton, Ross Coulter and Simon Obarzanek,
the original cast of Untrained.
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Education Resources Materials
These education resource materials are aimed at supporting teachers of Senior Secondary students
with both pre and post performance activities. The learning experiences presented in this kit support
an integrated approach to the use of the creative arts in the classroom as well as dance/movement
and drama as an art form approach to appreciating and responding to performance.
Broadly, four key learning areas are targeted in these resource materials – English, Creative Arts
(Dance, Drama, Music & Visual Arts), Science and Technology and Personal Development, Health and
Physical Education. The detailed notes are designed for Senior Secondary students however students
in younger years would also benefit and these activities can be adapted including a altered level of
expectation and outcome.
These materials are designed to be ‘teacher-friendly’ guiding you through step-by-step learning
experiences for your students. In addition, suggested classroom management strategies for doing
dance/movement in the classroom have also been included to assist with the implementation of the
activities included in this resource kit.
A Note on Contemporary Dance
The movement work in Untrained, along with much contemporary dance can be viewed as fairly
abstract for less experienced audiences. Attending a performance with an appropriate expectation
of contemporary dance, as well as understanding the history and aim of a particular piece, will allow
for maximum enjoyment to be gained from the experience.
These education resource materials provide a way to engage student interest prior and post the
performance and explore their expectations and understanding. In addition, it provides a theoretical
and practical exploration of the work itself allowing for the ‘journey’ being expressed through
movement to be considered.
We highly recommend that teachers engage their students in the pre-performance activities and
make themselves aware of the history and style of performance they will be attending. By doing so,
all can share an enjoyable and meaningful theatre experience.
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Classroom Management Suggestions
Dance/Movement and Drama can be used to enhance classroom-based learning by providing
opportunities to explore ideas and issues in different, expressive ways. Engagement in the creative
arts, including dance/movement and drama, has been considered to assist with the development of
self-esteem, communication skills, problem-solving abilities, and in the development of focus and
team building through fun activities.
Incorporating dance/movement or drama in school classrooms presents a number of challenges for
teachers, but when attempted reaps many rewards for all involved. The following suggestions are
designed to provide some food for thought in relation to working in these areas and are intended as
a guideline only.
When doing dance/movement or drama in the classroom:
- ensure a clear work space is available for the activity (with mats laid if possible). If desks can
not be moved in the classroom, try to use the hall or outside open area.
- talk to the students about the creation of a ‘safe space’. In this space students don’t laugh at
each other, but support and encourage (forming a circle at the beginning and end of a session or
sitting with eyes closed are simple ways to focus students for a session)
- always begin every session with a warm-up. This should include a physical warm-up, but it is
also helpful to begin with a focus/team building activity. There are good books and websites
available with suggestions of warm-up activities and focus games e.g. http://learnimprov.com/
(then go to warm-ups)
- incorporate a reflection session at the end of every activity. This allows the students to
consider what has been done and take more meaning away from the activity than it just being
fun (which it will be!)
- be firm with the students. If a student does not follow instructions, they should be removed
from the activity. This will allow the other students to see that you as the teacher are assisting in
maintaining the safe space for them to work.
- don’t be afraid to participate in the activities yourself. The students like to see you as the
teacher taking a role in an activity. This can also allow you to help any students through
modelling.
If possible, conduct a ‘risk assessment’ with your class before embarking on any physical work. As
class it would be good to discuss the personal, group, physical, and psychological risks inherent in
the working space. Together, the class could devise the measures that would help to minimize these
risks. This collaboration would help the students to realise that physical work can actually be
dangerous, and encourage them to take responsibility for themselves, the group, and the space
they’re working in.
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Teacher Resource Activities for Untrained
These activities are suggestions only and teachers are strongly encouraged to adapt or alter suggestions to suit their schools and individual classrooms. The
activities outlined below are designed for Senior Secondary students and include cross-curricular activities as well as some activities specific to the artforms
of drama, dance.movement. While there is some natural flow between these activities, it is not critical that activities are completed in the order presented
under ‘Post Performance’.
Pre Performance
Introduction to Untrained
Topic/Theme Learning Experiences
Introduction to
‘Untrained’
1. Display the word - Untrained. Divide students into small groups for a brainstorming session.
2. Ask each group to brainstorm what this word evokes for them. Encourage students to include response to the word as a ‘title’ as
well as what it may mean in general usage. (Record these for later reference.)
3. As a whole class, groups are to share their thoughts. Elicit from students what they believe a performance inspired by this word
might include.
4. Elicit from students their understanding of the word ‘postmodernism’. (See the following links for definition if required -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism_in_the_theatre, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodern_dance) They should also
consider what ‘postmodernism in theatre and dance’ might refer to.
5. Discuss the following quote from Lucy Guerin regarding the connection between ‘Untrained’ and ‘Postmoderism in dance’ (refer
also to the review –Appendix A – by Alison Croggan in relation to this connection):
People have been using Untrained bodies in dance since the sixties so this is nothing new. In fact these elements of chance, pedestrian
movement, lack of theatricality are now firmly embedded in contemporary dance practice. Recent European conceptual dance (Jerome
Bel, Xavier Leroy,) has its roots in the work of the artists of the Judson Church. I think one of the main things Untrained has in common
with the post modernists is that it is asking questions about the act of performance and what is interesting to watch for an audience.
NB If you wish to engage more fully with the history of postmodernism and dance, students could spend some time researching this
era. Discussion can be encouraged drawing from their research and focusing their thoughts on what a production that is reminiscent of
postmodernism in dance may entail.
6. Review student expectation of the performance based on this information, reinforcing the unique nature of the performance which
is more about movement and expression that a complex choreographed dance work.
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Introduction to Performance
Topic/Theme Learning Experiences
Introduction to
performance
1. Elicit from students their past experiences of attending a performance (dance/movement in particular). Discuss expectations in
relation to being an audience member in this style of professional performance.
2. Brainstorm with students the differences between dance/movement they would do in their classroom/school and the
‘dance/movement’ that is viewed as performance. Also consider specific expectations of an audience member in a live performance.
3. Discuss the meaning of ‘contemporary dance’ – consider the inclusion of speech, sound, music within performance. Elicit from
students their expectation for a ‘contemporary dance’ performance.
NB Draw on definition and notes provided earlier in these resource materials to help with establishing an appropriate expectation for
the performance.
Post Performance
Theatre Evaluation & Response (Integrated)
Topic/Theme Learning Experiences
Evaluation &
Response
1. Students discuss response to the performance as a whole considering themes, style and personal impact. Discussion to focus
particularly on their personal and emotional response to the performance.
2. Students to write a review of the performance with language and structure appropriate to publishing in a newspaper. It would be
important to discuss the style of writing appropriate for newspapers, provide students with some examples of theatre reviews as a
model for their work.
3. Publish the written reviews. Consider placing best reviews in the school newsletter or submitting them to the local paper.
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Response through Visual Representation
Topic/Theme Learning Experiences
Response through
Visual
Representation
1. Students to discuss their reaction to the performance and decide on the dancer/performer to which they most relate.
2. Students to create an artwork representing their emotional response to this performer and their part in the production. Students
should consider colour, line, shape and mood as well as a title. The title of the piece should be incorporated in the artwork.
NB Students should be encouraged to plan their work (design) and use multi-media/digital techniques where possible
3. Students to explain their artwork to the class justifying their choice of materials and style.
Introduction to Contemporary Dance exploration (Movement)
Topic/Theme Learning Experiences
Introduction to
Contemporary
Dance Exploration
Blended shapes
1. Establish a ‘safe space’ where the following activities will take place. Ensure all students understand importance of respecting all
interpretations by their colleagues during these activities.
2. Conduct physical warm-up with students. (Refer ‘Classroom Management Strategies’ offered earlier in these notes)
Make sure the area you are working in is clear with adequate space for the following movement activities
3. General Movement/Body Awareness Activities (for both activities emphasise the importance of varying speed, height and direction)
• Ask students to wander around the space
• Ask students to play a game of ‘follow the leader’
4. Improvisation Activities
• Introduce the game “What am I doing?” to the students. In this game students sit in a circle, one student is in the middle of the
circle miming an activity e.g. brushing my teeth. Another student asks them what they are doing. The student miming should
reply a different action to what they are doing e.g. walking the dog. The new student then gets up and mimes this new activity.
This continues until all students have had a turn.
• Play the game “Space Jump” with students. Also done in a circle, in this game a student in miming an activity. After a short
time the teacher should call ‘Space Jump’. The student in the circle is to freeze. At this time, another student should enter the
circle and begin a new mime based on the frozen position of the original student.
NB I would not recommend going higher than about 4 students when attempting space jump for the first time.
1. Ask students to form into groups of 5 - explain activity. Students will be working together to create shapes that complement each
other. e.g. if one student is in a ball, the next may curve over their back. Choose one group to begin the activity as an example.
2. Students to work on activity aiming to have all members in complementary positions
3. Repeat activity using contrasting shapes.
NB Having images of complementary and contrasting shapes may help students understand how to complete this activity.
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Performance Reflection & Humour
Topic/Theme Learning Experiences
Performance
Reflection &
Humour
1. Elicit from students some of the sequences the performers completed during the performance. The following list can be used as a
prompt.
• Movement for name (forward/reverse)
• Standing on one leg
• Falling in slow motion
• Follow the leader
• Eating
• Sleeping
• Series: running race beginning, jumping, leaping, star jump
• Taking off/putting on a shirt (with articulation)
• Taking multiple roles in a short script
2. Students should be encouraged to brainstorm their own activities to add to/replace this list. It would be helpful to explain to
students that this was how the piece was originally devised. All performers contributed different kinds of activities and executed them
one at a time or as a group. When the show is recreated with new ‘untrained’ in each place, some new instructions will then be
developed with them which relate to their specific occupations and interests.
3. Discuss what expectations students would have of a dancer - do they consider these to be complex actions/sequences? What
differences did they notice between the dancers/non-dancers in each?
NB Important to reflect on initial pre-performance discussions of what ‘trained/untrained’ might mean
4. Encourage students to reflect on the aspects of the performance they found to be humorous. The following questions may help
prompt discussion.
• Why did they believe that the ‘untrained’ dancers appeared more comic than the ‘trained’ dancers?
• What triggered laughter – a visual comic stimulus or embarrassment as an audience member?
• Do they believe that any of the performers moved in particular ways to generate humour from an audience or did all attempt
each sequence seriously and to the best of their physical ability?
5. Explain to the students that they will be engaging in some of the same activities that the performers did in Untrained.
6. Discuss the importance of a ‘safe space’ and conduct an appropriate warm-up before beginning any physical work with students –
refer to Classroom Management strategies earlier in these notes
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NB Teachers should consider which option is most suitable for their class depending on the confidence and experience of the students
Option 1 – Simultaneous exploration – each student does the activity/sequence at the same time
6. Have the students find a space to do the series of activities listed above
7. Teacher to call out each action outlined above and students to do them in their own space
Option 2 – Students do each activity/sequence in small groups with other students watching
6. Students to be in groups of no more than four. One group to be selected while the others watch as ‘audience’.
7. Each group in turn to rotate being the ‘performers’ and doing the series of actions outlined above
8. Students to discuss how it felt to do the different actions. The following questions may help prompt discussion.
• Were some actions harder than others?
• What did doing basic actions tell them about the way their own bodies moved?
• Had they thought about simple things like how they slept or putting on a shirt before?
9. What did they learn about others through watching their simple movements? Did it change their understanding of how they
interact with others?
Nature of Performance
Topic/Theme Learning Experiences
Nature of
Performance
1. Students to consider the following quote:
“I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching and this is
all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged”
(Peter Brook, 1968 p9)
2. Ask students to work in pairs and discuss this quote in relationship to:
a) their own experiences of viewing performances/theatre
b) how this relates to/sheds light on the production of Untrained
c) how this quote/perspective might shape their understanding of the question, ‘What is performance?”
Each pair to do the following activities based on their understanding of what performance is.
3. Pairs to brainstorm words, images and anecdotes to represent their understanding of performance.
4. These should then be swapped with another pair. The alternate pair is to highlight five of the words, images or anecdotes they
believe represent most clearly an understanding of performance. They then give these back to the original pairs.
5. The original pairs are to consider the five selected words, images or anecdotes and match these with colours.
6. Pairs are to create a visual arts piece displaying the five words and appropriate colours to portray their understanding of
performance.
NB These could be displayed along with the original words, images or anecdotes that inspired them if desired.
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7. Students are to consider the words and colours and in pairs develop a series of five physical images to represent what inspired
them. Encourage students to draw on natural movements, line and shape as well as focusing on mood and level.
9. If desired, students can perform their five physical images as a stimulus for discussion on the varying answers to the dilemma –
‘What is performance?’
What is Drama?/What is Dance/Movement?
Topic/Theme Learning Experiences
Debate –
Dance/Movement
or Drama?
1. Elicit from students what they believe was the inspiration for Untrained. Consider the title as well as referring to pre-performance
thoughts for this piece.
3. Explain that the students will be taking part in a debate arguing either that Untrained is predominantly a drama piece or
predominantly a dance piece.
4. Allocate students groups and either the dance or drama focus
5. Students should conduct research to ensure they consider Untrained through an understanding of:
• the history of drama/dance,
• characteristics of their allocated artform,
• other examples which will support or refute their perspective
• contemporary dance/movement and its role within the broader artforms of drama and dance
Their research work should be recorded for use in their presentation/debate. Where possible, developing the presentation the use of
technology should be encouraged.
4. Each group is to present their information in 2 ways.
a) Through a verbal/multimedia presentation drawing on the areas outlined in point 5 (above) arguing their perspective
b) Through a ‘frozen image’ representing what group feels is the essence of Untrained as either dance or drama.
NB If students have not done ‘frozen images’ before - explain they are to create a real life photograph using their bodies.
5. Schedule each group’s performance and presentation. Following each image, the class should discuss the elements of drama or
dance displayed in the image.
6. At the conclusion of all presentations, encourage a class discussion regarding the relationship between drama and
dance/movement as represented in Untrained.
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Reflection and Exploration of Self and Identity
Topic/Theme Learning Experiences
Reflection and
Exploration of Self
and Identity
1. Ask students to listen to the following quote:
The evolution of information about each man, built up through units of action, points out what draws us together and what sets
us apart as individuals.
(Explain that this is a description of ‘Untrained’ as provided in marketing materials by Lucy Guerin Inc.)
2. Discuss what this quote evokes for the students understanding of the performance. What differences did they believe there were
between the performers? Did they view them as ‘individuals’ or as part of a ‘team’ involved in a common production?
3. Divide students into four groups with each being allocated one performer. Students are to reflect on two areas and provide
examples:
• What do they believe their particular performer did within the production to contribute to an audiences understanding of
their personal identity?
• Do they believe that the ‘identity’ being revealed on stage was a construct or a reflection of true identity?
4. Groups are to share their thoughts on their performer with the class to prompt more general discussion of identity and identity
creation.
5. Ask each student to record his or her thoughts about identity creation. The following statement could be used as a
prompt/challenge to encourage reflection.
Nobody ever shows their true identity, all we show about ourselves is constructed through our own ideas of who we wish to be,
and believe those around us wish us to be.
NB No student will be required to share their ideas if they do not wish to – they will be used, however as stimulus for the following
activity.
6. Students to use their reflection (either in agreement or opposition to the statement) as a stimulus for designing a multi-media
sculpture OR physical tableaux. Students to be given the option as to which task they complete.
NB It would be beneficial to have some pictures/examples of sculptures and physical tableaux for inspiration.
Sculpture
7. Students to develop a sculpture as inspired by their reflection – consider the use of a sculpture (portrait) in Untrained. In this
activity, it does not need to represent a known object, and can be abstract.
8. Students should follow proper design and make procedures (sketching design and deciding materials before beginning
construction).
9. Sculptures to be displayed - students to decide on an appropriate one-word title for their work.
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Physical Tableaux Series (NB students could draw on other classmates to assist in the presentation of the work, however the actual
design of the physical tableaux series should be an individual activity)
7. Students to create a series of three tableaux images to represent their reflection on identity creation. Line, shape and associated
mood should be considered as well as the use of sound, costume, props etc (if relevant/available)
8. Students should record either through sketches or drawings the series of images and be able to articulate the connection to their
understanding of identity
9. The Tableaux series to be performed - students to decide on appropriate one-word title for their work.
NB Still images could be taken of each tableaux in the series and would be a good activity for setting up a still-art exhibition
Portraits
Topic/Theme Learning Experiences
Portraits
1. Discuss how portraits are used in Untrained e.g. drawn, video. The following questions may help to stimulate discussion.
• What part of the body was used in the portraits? Is this typical?
• What was different between the drawn and video portrait?
• Why were the drawn portraits more similar than the video ones?
• What do the students believe the performers were wishing to represent about themselves in the video portraits?
NB A digital video camera is required for the following activity – if one is not available, students can create a photograph instead of a
video with a digital stills camera. If no camera is available, the activity can be modified to doing drawn portraits only, and bringing a
photograph from home.
2. Students to work in pairs and select either ‘drawn portrait’ or ‘video/photographic portrait’. (If desired, all students could do both
style of portrait if time allows.)
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Drawn Portrait
3. Students should work in their pairs to draw a portrait of each other’s face with the ‘drawer’ emphasising elements of their partner’s
personality they find most appealing - a variety of materials could be used for this activity - crayons, pencil, charcoal, paint etc
4. Pairs should compare the portraits and discuss the areas emphasised/focused on to gain an understanding of the way they are
perceived by their partner.
5. Pairs should then reflect on how this compares with their own perception of what may be appealing about themselves
Video/Photographic Portrait
3. Students to discuss one thing they believe typify themselves. In pairs, students should plan a video sequence or photograph of their
face that allows for that aspect of self to be revealed.
4. Pairs should take the photographs/shoot the video, and upload them for further discussion.
5. Pairs should reflect on their videos/photographs and how their plan actually translated into image – did it show what they hoped?
Did the video or photograph reveal anything they were not expecting?
Pairs to swap images with a pair from the other option (drawn/video or photographic) for the following activities.
Wider response to image
6. Ask students to recreate one of the two photographs or capture a still from the video considering lines, shapes, overall
composition. Various media can be used for the recreation including pencil, crayon, charcoal or paints.
Detailed response
7. Provide each student with a toilet roll (if not available, a rolled up piece of paper will also work). Instruct students to look through
their roll and focus on one part of their chosen image (drawn/photographic). Through lines and shading, students to recreate only this
small section as a complete artwork. (Similar media to the wider response to be used for this activity)
8. Students are to consider their two pieces of artwork and brainstorm words they feel complement each piece. Students are to
choose an appropriate colour and create a border for their artwork on which their selected words have been printed.
NB These borders can be created via a computer if desired.
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Collective Discussion
9. A ‘Drawn Portrait’ and ‘Photographic/Video Portrait’ pair should be brought together to make a group of four. In these teams,
students should consider all four images and discuss the different aspects of ‘identity’ and ‘self’ that are revealed.
10. The teacher should then ask each team to consider the following question and prepare a response to share in a whole class
discussion.
If these portraits were to include the whole body and not just the face, what other information may or may not be given and
might this change our understanding of personality?
Teams should be encouraged to consider the impact of body language on our understanding of self and identity. In addition, students
should be encouraged to consider how body language can be used to alter other’s perceptions of ourselves as well as help us
understand other people, their emotions and feelings.
11. Teams should report their ideas to the whole class and this information should be used as a stimulus for whole class discussion.
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UNTRAINED: REVIEWS
Foursome create sublime mix
Adelaide Advertiser
26 February 2010
Reviewed by Peter Burdon
LUCY Guerin's Untrained is a hugely enjoyable work, bringing together and fully exploiting
the theatrical potential of two superb dancers and two other artists from outside the
performing sphere.
Untrained incorporates a basic movement vocabulary and a great deal of improvisation,
much of which is very amusing, as in the sequences where the untrained attempt to mimic
the trained, a formidable challenge when either of the dancers, Antony Hamilton and Byron
Perry, let loose.
It's a mark of the respect the four performers have for each other that the untrained, visual
artists Ross Coulter and Simon Obarzanek, are not belittled by their manifest inability to
match the phenomenal skill of two of Australia’s best dancers.
If the challenge for the untrained is great at times, the trained don't get it all their own way.
Two scenes where Obarzanek and Coulter improvise on the dancers, especially Obarzanek's
live photograph are taxing in the other direction.
The delight of all four performers is both evident and infectious, to the extent that Perry, in
particular, failed entirely to keep a straight face at the hilarious attempts to keep up with
the dancing Joneses. Laugh, and the whole world laughs with you.
The sole set piece of the night, a closing quartet, is a stroke of genius, bringing the trained
and untrained together in a show that was otherwise a very individual affair.

Amateurs take the spotlight, steal laughs
Sydney Morning Herald
4 September 2009
Reviewed by Jill Sykes
This is fun. Not, perhaps, for people who expect an evening of serious innovative dance
when they buy their tickets. But for regular dancegoers who enjoy something different, who
are prepared to have questions asked and to ask their own, Untrained is refreshing and
amusing.
As its title suggests, it involves two untrained dancers alongside two who have been dancing
most of their lives, Byron Perry and Luke Smiles. Simon Obarzanek (brother of the
choreographer Gideon) and Ross Coulter, in contrast, have neither training nor any obvious
instinct for dance.
The four of them line up as they might in a traditional dance class when each person
performs a required movement or phrase. These are not usually the same, just similar. But
when Obarzanek and Coulter do them, the results are often hilarious. Yet as we laugh - and
the whole thing is done in high good humour - we can observe the stark differences in body
shapes and control, in the ability to move and communicate through dance. I love watching
amateur dancers doing something they love in circumstances where that passion guides
their action. But this is something else.
Obarzanek and Coulter cope intelligently with their lack of skill in jumps, tumbling falls and
turns, and it is fascinating to observe how they compensate. The guys who can't do it
become more interesting than the two who can. They have the audience's sympathy and
admiration for their truly creative efforts.
Director Lucy Guerin has not gone so far as to ask the polished dancers Perry and Smiles to
perform poker-faced and characterless, so there is not that degree of contrast. And you
have to wonder: what would she have done if the untrained performers had started to get
better? Told them to stay as they were?
As the piece evolves, the dancers pair off and take it in turns to follow the other. It is
probably the peak of the action in its highs and lows of achievement and failure, though the
brief finale with all four is pretty good. In fact, the ''untrained'' are in danger of looking not
so bad.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/09/03/1251570799835.html

Dance Massive: Untrained
Theatre Notes
March 17 2009
Reviewed by Alison Croggon
Lucy Guerin's Untrained, presented in the dance-friendly space at the Meatmarket, is
another take on command and response. The premise is lucid and simple: four performers,
two trained dancers (Antony Hamilton and Byron Perry) and two untrained (visual artists
Ross Coulter and Simon Obarzanek), are given a series of tasks, which they perform before
an audience. The tasks are listed on pieces of paper laid on the floor, and the performances
take place in a small square outlined in the middle of the stage.
It could be the essence of banality, a merely intellectual examination of the differences
between levels of performative skill. Indeed, before I saw it, I read this withering review in
the Age, which said that the work was simply going over old ground broken in the 1960s,
and that although it was "mildly entertaining", Untrained was "ultimately uninteresting".
Ouch.
After I had seen the show, this struck me as a rather ungenerous response: as with Two-
Faced Bastard, I think you have to work hard to resist the unexpected charm of this show.
But the review prompted me do some reading about the post-modern dance that emerged
in 1960s New York. Post-modern dance evolved in part from the dance of Merce
Cunningham, although it was a reaction to the purities of modern practice. It famously
began with an influential series of performances in the Judson Church Hall in Greenwich
Village in the early '60s. And yes, Jordan Beth Vincent is quite correct: Untrained is indeed
in the same area. Like those performances, this show draws on Dadaist influences, Cagean
randomness and task-based activity, and the vernacular of the everyday, using both trained
and untrained bodies to examine the nature of performance.
Does this mean Guerin is merely reinventing the wheel? Is it naive to find it engrossing? I'm
not so sure. For one thing, you'd have to be absolutely certain that Guerin doesn't know
that the wheel exists in the first place. Myself, I'd be taking bets that she is perfectly aware
of the traditions from which she is drawing. And also, you'd have to ignore the immediacy
of the performances, which engage your attention throughout the show (which seemed a
lot shorter than its 90 minutes). I thought of Borges's story about the man who rewrote
Cervantes' Don Quixote, and his assertion that, although the second text was exactly the
same, word for word, as the original, the newer writing was an entirely different work,
because an entirely different time and series of necessities had brought it to fruition. I think
some- thing similar pertains here. Only more so, because performance only ever exists in
the now.

What emerged from this series of tasks, ranging from the mundane - say your name
backwards - to the comic - do a slow-motion fall - was a surprisingly moving process of
personal revelation. You would expect the non-dancers to be vulnerable, exposed by their
lack of skills when juxtaposed with such skilled bodies as Perry and Hamilton; what you
might not expect is the vulnerability opened in the dancers as the visual artists began to
exploit their comedic incompetence to charm the audience.
More than anything else, Untrained is four very intimate portraits. Portraiture is an overt
theme: during the course of the show the performers drew pictures of each other, as well
as speaking to paper sculptures that were self-portraits. The show is almost cubist in the
way it opens out differing perspectives of looking (I guess it's no accident that two
performers are visual artists) - we are aware of the performers looking at each other as well
as us looking at them, and of the differing expectations with which we look.
It demonstrates how revealing movement is, exposing a person's shynesses and extrovert
defences as well as their generous expressiveness. And it shows how expressiveness
expands through play, opening up privacies of which the performers are not necessarily
conscious. A young girl in front of me was enchanted and shook with laughter all the way
through it; it was certainly funny, but that transparent comedy was gently underlaid by
something else, some- thing profoundly humane, which was much more complex than it
seemed.
Untrained: Concept/ Direction: Lucy Guerin, Performers: Ross Coulter, Antony Hamilton,
Simon Obarzanek, Byron Perry.
http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com/2009/03/dance-massive-lawn-rogue-untrained.html

Untrained | Lucy Guerin Inc
Australian Stage
13 March 2009
Reviewed by Simonne Michelle-Wells
Untrained, a new work by choreographer Lucy Guerin and part of the first Dance Massive, is
a wholly satisfying theatre experience. It calls itself a ‘casual theatrical exploration’; an
entirely appropriate summation of a show that’s a fascinating combination of dance,
theatre, improvisation and multimedia, all presented with just the right amount of quirk
and irreverence.
Untrained presents the audience with four performers: two trained dancers (Byron Perry
and Antony Hamilton) and two professional visual artists with no dance training whatsoever
(Ross Coulter and Simon Obarzanek). The basic premise here is that all four are asked to
perform the same instructions. How they execute these then creates individual portraits of
each performer, as well as allowing for comparisons between them. As the show progresses
and we are given more information and further insights into each performer, we see their
commonalities as well as their differences, as performers and as people.
The piece doesn’t become, however, merely a simple exploration about difference; it’s also
about art itself: about what it means to watch a performer and what is really worth
watching in a performance. This is the basis of what is truly unique about Untrained. It was
hard to gauge what was improvised and what wasn’t, and there were some sequences that
left you wondering why on earth you were watching four men do that, while, at other
times, the audience erupted into spontaneous applause because what they offered was so
theatrically engaging and somehow simultaneously so intensely personal it was very
moving.
Byron Perry and Antony Hamilton are beautiful, seasoned dancers and a delight to watch.
The attempts by Coulter and Obarzanek to match their movements, as well as providing
huge amounts of comic entertainment and an insight into how untrained dancers use their
bodies, also served to highlight their skill and grace a hundred- fold. Perry is mesmerising.
His skills clearly extend beyond dance, since he displayed strong voice and theatrical skills
too.
Guerin says of the show, "In watching trained dancers I think we feel confidence about how
the movements are executed and that they will be in control of what they are doing. The
untrained dancers offer us a more precarious, unpredictable experience...there is an
element of risk in their attempts."

Indeed, there were more than a few moments in the show where the audience held its
collective breath as Coulter and Obarzanek attempted a few back spins and head slides
across the floor. Watching the trained dancers, you had an expectation of where their
movements would take them, not to mention the grace displayed in getting there, but with
the untrained dancers, there was a big element of the unknown and a real sense of
protection extended to them by the audience.
Guerin also adds, "With non-dancers their movement training is their daily lives and their
inherited physicality. So they are more able, in a way, to create movement that is ‘new' or
undefined from a dance perspective; and that movement is very difficult to reproduce,
even for a dancer."
I’m not so sure about the “even for a dancer” bit. This sequence in the show, where first
the untrained and then the trained dancers dance (improv) and the other has to mirror
them, is a lot of fun. But the trained dancers were phenomenally good at copying the
mostly unorthodox movements of the untrained dancers. It was surprising how precisely
they actually could match such ‘undefined’ movements.
There is a lot of joy in Untrained. The performers clearly have a good time. And why
wouldn’t they? At one point Coulter (untrained) has a go at creating some choreography for
Hamilton (trained) and tells him to ‘move like seaweed on the left side of your body and a
robot on the right’ and somehow Hamilton does it and does it well! Later, each of the
performers describes to the audience what their experience in collaborating on the show
was like; Obarzanek says matter-of-factly, “They [the trained dancers] know what each little
hair on their knuckle is doing, while it takes me half an hour to get my foot to move”.
Untrained closes with a choreographed dance sequence, clearly rehearsed by all four
performers beforehand, and this is a fabulous way to end the show. This not only
counterpoints the improv con- tent, but also hints at the difference that can be made by
practice for the untrained. I left wanting to sit down and see it all again. It’s wonderful,
inimitable stuff.
http://www.australianstage.com.au/reviews/melbourne/untrained--lucy-guerin-inc-
2323.html

Nothing Hidden, Much Gained.
RealTime
March 2009
Reviewed by Carl Nilsson-Polias
The titles of Lucy Guerin’s recent works have been marked by clarity and transparency, even
literalness. Structure and Sadness dealt with the aftermath of grief caused by the west gate
bridge collapse. Melt was a duet for two water molecules that move from ice through to
steam. Corridor limited itself to a long traverse stage and took a corridor scene from Kafka
as its inspiration. And now Untrained juxtaposes two artists trained as dancers with two
artists untrained as dancers.
Contrast these examples with the titular and choreographic opacity of Shelley Lasica’s
Vianne and there would appear to be nothing hidden in Guerin’s world, nothing that is so
mysterious that it cannot be elucidated in a simple, perfectly decipherable title. For her
critics, this is a cause for frustration: her works can be seen as the physical equivalent of
begging the question in rhetoric, where the proposition assumes its own truth before being
argued. In other words, is the dance redundant once you read the program notes?
Yet, aside from the inherent value judgements involved in meriting metaphor over
literalness, describing Guerin’s dance as redundant is to deny its capacity to transcend the
admittedly literal text that tries to encapsulate it. Guerin is not given to ornateness in her
language but her sensibility for the human form is far from plain—the duets across her
body of work are remarkable in their mesmerising intimacy, their detail and their capacity to
enliven the space between the dancers as much as they animate the bodies themselves.
Moreover, by starting with such conceptual distillation, Guerin’s work emerges from a kind
of purity, with every subsequent extrapolation seeming to fit and flow on perfectly from the
last.
Indeed, it is a questioning of purity that lies at the heart of Untrained. The title is easily
decipherable, yes, but what is it to be untrained? Is the untrained body pure in its
movement—unfettered by the conditioning of choreography and exercises? Or is it the
trained body, in its refinement and exactitude, that achieves purity by sublimation? Guerin
is certainly not looking for an easy solution to this dialectic. She is interested in what it does
to us as an audience and to the performers themselves to see these questions made
manifest by exploring the continuum from pure naivety to pure technique.
Her staging of Untrained maintains this notion of purity. The set is nothing more than a grey
playing square marked out by broad white lines. It is a clever delimiter, its form suggestive

of a playground ball court or a boxing ring—both stages perhaps but ones not restricted to
the arts. The performers never leave our sight, yet, with just one exception, only when they
enter this square are they viewed. This is no geometrical sleight of hand. What we are
witnessing is an experiment where we are the lab technicians and this square our Petri dish.
By placing contrasting physical presences in the same space one after another, Guerin
provides us with a microscope through which to examine the idiosyncrasies, the likenesses,
the differentiators and the foibles of four bodies in motion.
The identities of these four bodies are important to note. Byron Perry and Antony Hamilton
are two wunderkinder of the Melbourne dance scene. Not only are they ubiquitous
presences in the works of Lucy Guerin Inc and Chunky Move, but they are also celebrated
choreographers and visual artists. Their untrained co-performers are Simon Obarzanek and
Ross Coulter, who are both visual artists. So, as it happens, all are men and all are visual
artists.
To begin with, the performers present themselves to the audience one at a time by
standing in the centre of the square for a few seconds, doing nothing. They have been asked
to be neutral. However, each of them carries a stamp of personality and of habit, and we
see this. From this starting point, Guerin uses a succession of provocations to tease out
different performative languages: sing a song, be a cat that gets electrocuted, copy your
partner. At times, the audience laughs at the ineptitude of the untrained. At times, they
laugh at the hubris of the trained. As the work progresses, the laughs dissipate and the
analytical eye is no longer restricted to the audience—the performers themselves begin to
reflect on how they compare with the others and, vitally, are asked to speak to their own
image.
Lucy Guerin Inc, Untrained, concept, direction Lucy Guerin, performers Ross Coulter,
Antony Hamilton, Simon Obarzanek, Byron Perry, music Cusp by Duplo Remote, producer
Michaela Coventry; Arts House, March 11-14; Dance Massive, Melbourne, March 3-15
http://www.realtimearts.net/feature/Dance_Massive/9384

Reality Dance
RealTime
March 2009
Reviewed by Keith Gallasch
There are performance works that play with and disorient the senses—in Dance Massive,
Simon Ellis and Shannon Bott's Inert, the Helen Herbertson-Ben Cobham Morphia series
and Chunky Move's Mortal Engine; in recent theatre, Barrie Kosky's treatment of Poe's The
Telltale Heart. At the same time, game and task-based works for performers and audiences
are on the rise in live art events around the world, and in provocations such as Panther's
exercises in happiness at the 2008 Melbourne International Arts Festival.
These phenomena resonate, on the one hand, with the immersive media arts and virtual
realities of the 21st century and, on the other, with computer game playing and the
ongoing surge of popular competition, from quiz shows to reality TV. With none of the
latter's dumbed down Darwinism, Lucy Guerin Inc's Untrained benignly offers us reality
dance—an extended set of tasks that pit two trained dance artists (Byron Perry, Antony
Hamilton) against two visual artists (Simon Obarzanek, Ross Coulter)—revealing much
about how we perceive the human body and what we think we know about dance.
The 'reality' of Untrained, however well constructed the overall work might be, is that the
non-dancers' lack of dance skills provides a considerable likelihood of risk and of chance
happenings, moments of surprising verve and sheer failure. Nor are the tasks simple for the
trained dancers: there's a large quotient of improvisation and pas- sages where they have to
closely mimic the unpredictable moves of the untrained or interpret their choreographies.
As much as these amuse, they're also telling. The untrained pick up the broad patterns of
movement, but rarely the detail (hinged on acute degrees of propulsion, balance and
articulation), while the trained briskly realise additional layers of possibility.
So, instead of a finished dance work, we are witness to a series of revealing portraits and
tests with a chancy, cumulative impact. Above all, we are implicitly asked to look very
closely at, and listen to, these four men, our role as observers considerably heightened.
This is accentuated by the spare staging—a large open space with a square marked out in
the middle, a frame in which everything hap- pens as soon as the men enter it from the
queues they form either side. Initially, each man stands before us, motionless. We take
each in. We'll subsequently see these same faces, these same bodies again, at rest (as if
asleep), pulling faces, making weird sounds, reading aloud comments they've made about
themselves. Towards the end, each of them simply stands before us again, but now we
know more about them—not a lot (this is not the confessional faction of reality TV), but
details of physiognomy and assessments of mobility, risk-taking, engagement with each

other and us. We have guessed at and largely learnt this not from the brief images of the
men alone, but from their work together.
There's even a moment where, with cards and textas, the men stand at the four corners of
the frame and sketch each other's faces, then show the results to the audience. In another,
they display photo- graphs of themselves, and elsewhere, videos they've directed. They
even comment on each other's dance and visual art capacities. But it's the dancing itself
which is most revealing. One after another the performers execute a move; as the image
mutates the effect is of a visual Chinese whisper. More brief moves—balances, kicks, spins,
painfully slow motion extensions—ensue and morph. Ross Coulter wittily removes his shoe
and uses it puppet-like to mimic a slow motion fall while his body remains at rest. The tasks
grow more demanding, if leavened with moments of yawning or sighing, or long jumps, or
solo songs or speaking backwards, or performing favourite pop culture figures. The
extended copying duets break the frame as each trained performer follows an untrained
around the space and then the roles are reversed—concentration, effort, surprise and
amusement are palpable.
These competitive duets tell us much. Obarzanek tries very hard, he's a bit of a performer
(naturally inclined to dance when he sings in his emphatic baritone); Coulter is economical,
more low key, laconic, if nonetheless committed. With the trained dancers the differences
are subtler; theirs is an easy-going naturalism, the singing more polished, personalities less
overtly expressed. Not surprisingly it's their dancing which is telling: Perry's spring-loaded,
quietly dramatic articulacy, Hamilton's sinuous, rippling intensity.
As well as the duets, there's recurrent group work which comes affectingly into its own at
the end—where you find yourself wishing that there'd been more of it, as big a demand as
that might be. In the course of the show, the group moans, cries and, among other things,
demonstrates various, revealing techniques for removing and putting on t-shirts. Above all
the men collectively convey an undemonstrative competitiveness, mutual empathy and
good humour as they perform their long list of tasks, while the audience doubtlessly
reflects on what its own dance abilities might be in the same circumstances.
Perhaps, too, the audience think about the pleasure of witnessing a benign image of men
collaborating and competing without corporate, militaristic and sporting straitjacketings.
However well or not they can dance, these men flow, as Klaus Theweleit put it in his antifascist
classic Male Fantasies (1977), and the sense of them as real and complex, beyond
artifice, is rooted in the lucid pragmatism of Guerin's task-based formulation for Untrained.
http://www.realtimearts.net/feature/Dance_Massive/9382

What is dance? An old question is not always a good one
The Age
13 March 2009
Reviewed by Jordan Beth Vincent
In New York City in the 1960s and 1970s, a group of post-modern dancers set about
redefining their art form by asking the most basic question: what constitutes dance?
Key aspects of their choreographic and artistic explorations included using untrained
performers, a democratic choreographic process, and rejecting traditional forms and
structures.
Nearly 40 years on, Lucy Guerin does her own exploration of those concepts in Untrained, a
work that — considering the long history of such explorations — feels dated. The premise is
simple: four men appear onstage, two of whom — Byron Perry and Antony Hamilton — are
trained dancers. The other two — Ross Coulter and Simon Obarzanek — are visual artists,
meaning that they bring a certain level of artistic awareness and creativity to the
performance, yet have no physical training.
There is a strong sense of a rehearsal-in-progress, an impression confirmed by the casual
costumes of trackies and runners, as well as minimalistic lighting. The men take turns
performing a series of tasks, each designed to create a portrait of the individual performer.
Some are as simple as acting out a favourite movie scene, while others are slightly more
intimate. There are some amusing moments, mostly surrounding the fumbled and clumsy
attempts by Coulter and Obarzanek to imitate the complex movement patterns of Perry and
Hamilton.
Untrained succeeds in exposing some sort of truth about each of these performers. These
are real men, who deserve to be commended for their brave willingness to reveal their
insecurities, vulnerabilities and idiosyncrasies to an audience.
Unfortunately, the piece never develops past the comparison between dancer and nondancer,
even as it tries to emphasise the fallacy of such a distinction. Untrained fails to
break any ground and, although seeing it may be mildly entertaining, this work is ultimately
uninteresting.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2009/03/12/1236447401936.html

Spring Dance festival looks to have legs
The Australian
22 September 2009
Reviewed by Deborah Jones
SYDNEY Opera House's new Spring Dance festival should be a stayer. In its first year the
program has been small but well chosen.
...
Lucy Guerin's Untrained puts together two dancers and two artists, men completely
untrained in dance. Guerin, isn't, however, revisiting the 1960s notion that everyone has an
equal right to stage time regardless of skill but shows how the two sides can learn from one
another. Yes, it's amusing to see artists Ross Coulter and Simon Obarzanek try to emulate
the superlative dancers Byron Perry and Luke Smiles, but in a sympathetic way. Who of us
could do any better?
As the men dance, sing, draw and talk about how they feel, the audience is drawn into selfexamination
about life, art and stretching boundaries. One question particularly intrigued
me: how would this piece look with women? Very different, I suspect; one of the delicious
mysteries of art.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/successful-festival-looks-to-have-legs/storye6frg8po-1225777802322