BERNADETTE RAE discovers what happens when two highly individual talents combine in a single show.
Margrete Helgeby and Stefan Karlsson are among Australia's best dancers - classically trained, internationally experienced and cutting a contemporary edge.
When they pooled resources in July 1997 and created Loaded it was an instant success, selling out in its first season in Perth and singled out a few months later to tour in Australia's Made to Move 1999 series.
"The Rogers and Astaire of contemporary dance," cooed one critic in response to their performance, which ranges from the radical to the almost conventional.
In Gideon Obarzanek's Special Combination a naked Helgeby seems to take on the quality of a hologram in the "white noise" - a flickering sort of light projected on to her body - while Elizabeth Hill's Opportunity is set to traditional Celtic music.
Loaded opens at the Maidment Theatre next Tuesday, part of New Zealand's Made to Move subscription season.
"It's a very hard show for two dancers," says Helgeby after a six-week marathon across Australia, performing the demanding programme of four duets and nine solos - with not an understudy in sight.
"But we have the passion and commitment and drive to go out and do the job, no matter what ... plus plenty of adrenalin and a few painkillers."
Norwegian-born Helgeby trained at the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts and is a veteran of the West Australian Ballet, Chrissie Parrott Dance Company in Perth and London's Rambert Dance Company.
In 1997 she was working on a solo project, aiming to showcase contemporary Australian choreography for audiences in America.
Swedish-born Karlsson - who has danced for companies including Cullberg Ballet in Stockholm, Tanzforum in Cologne, the Sydney Dance Company and the West Australian Ballet (where he first met and danced with Helgeby in 1987) - was also working on a solo show. His idea was to produce a series of works to perform himself.
The two themes remain visible in the amalgam that is Loaded, although woven into a whole.
"One of my pet hates," says Helgeby, "is the showcase that reminds you of an end-of-year school recital, with the curtain going up and down and lots of individual items. I hate that disturbance and broken concentration. We have none of that."
While Loaded has no single narrative - and one of its charms is the chance to sample the work of such choreographers as Obarzanek and Hill, Graeme Murphy, Chrissie Parrott, Barry Moreland, Jon Burtt, Sue Peacock and Karlsson - the transitions, including set and costume changes, have been carefully choreographed into the performance.
"The audience becomes a part of all that," Helgeby says. "It creates a story about Stefan and I, outside of the dance pieces. The audience begins to see a relationship - but not a 'relationship.'
"We had forums across Australia when we toured, and we were always asked if we were married or lovers. We're not."
Who: Margrete Helgeby and Stefan Karlsson
What: Loaded
Where: Maidment Theatre
When: From next Tuesday
Dancers close - to a point
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