Louder Than Words

Charmene Yap in Andonis Foniadakis’s Parenthesis. Photo by Wendell Levi Teodoro, via Facebook.

As part of their 45th birthday celebrations, Sydney Dance Company are presenting an exciting double bill of two world premieres entitled Louder Than Words. There is Rafael Bonachela’s magnificent, powerful masterpiece Scattered Rhymes, and guest choreographer Andonis Foniadakis’ Parenethesis.

Technically the dancing is more than superb and the dancers deal with the somewhat similar yet contrasting styles of choreography brilliantly. At times they seem boneless.

Bonachela has been director of Sydney Dance Company since 2009 and Scattered Rhymes is his latest dazzling work. It begins with the dancers at a run and is relentless; very demanding. The shuddering, explosive soundscape by O’Regan and Wales is all based on the human voice, with the dancers working through the massive choral work of the same name. Petrarch poems and an anonymous 14th-century English writer who explores the split between sensual and divine love and unrequited love are blended with a complex, fragmentary score that borrows from Guillaume de Machaut but which is at all times distinctively O’Regan and Wales in a heady, thrilling mix. The cast are all in elegant red outfits (beautifully cut leotards and a sort of soft variation on sleepwear mostly). Bonachela’s choreography demands catlike grace, a very clean, stretched ‘line’ and soft, powerful jumps.

At one point there were radiating spider web like light patterns on the floor of the stage, but mostly the stage was dominated by the hundreds of hanging lightglobes suspended from above.

Sometimes Bonachela’s choreography is quite fluid and sculptural, at other times it uses repeated phrases of movement either performed individually or as a group possibly fractionally out of sync. There are various amazing shining mini solos (e.g. Juliet Barton’s), a fantastic sinuous male duet which has something of the feel of an intimate wrestling match, and a quite intense mirroring female duet. Another highlight is the wonderful slinky duet with Charmaine Yap and Petros Treklis.

In the lead up to the finale the whole company is on stage, divided into two groups that repeat various phrases of movement, before eventually splitting into couples who also perform individually repeated phrases of movement. This brings us to an explosive, tempestuous finale and – snap! Blackout .

Parenthesis by guest choreographer Andonis Foniadakis left me somewhat disssapointed. While it was danced superbly and with great polish, its abstraction left me cold. The set, designed by Benjamin Cisterne, was black floaty strips. Julien Tarride’s jumpy electronic score throbbed and included voiceovers. Sometimes the lighting flickers as if a storm is just about to hit.

The sharp angular lines of the Mondrian-like costumes, as designed by Tassos Sofroniou, with the skirts sometimes ¾ cutaway were most unflattering. They were in a mix of blues, browns and purples. Julien Tarride’s perturbing and dissonant score is thick with strings and birdlike sounds; it’s a consistent repeated coagulation of beats, sounds, factory scratchings, and what he defines as ‘psychoacoustic references’.

Fondiakis’ choreography is at times quite ritualised and stylised, sometimes frieze-like. Everyday movements are blended with almost impossibly athletic ones. Elfin Jesse Scales emerges at one point in a skin-coloured outfit and has a very steamy athletic duet with one of the male dancers (Bernard Knauer, I think). Later Charmaine Yap appears suddenly in a similar skin-coloured outfit as ‘Eve’ (or Everywoman) and performs a coldly athletic, quite erotic pas de deux, echoing in some ways the earlier duet. Both pas de deux were incredibly demanding and almost physically impossible, but there was no real sense of emotion. Some of Foniadakis’ choreography is robotic and repeated. In another part, reminiscent of Macmillan’s Manon, a single woman is passed over through and around several of the men, being treated as an Object. Towards the end there is a section that has an underwater feel, with fluid, darting choreography.

The work concludes with the dancers vanishing in silhouette and focusing on just two dancers, locked in an embrace, each echoing the other’s entwining.   

The opening night audience loved both works.

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Scattered Rhymes
Choreographer Rafael Bonachela
Composers Tarik O’Regan and Nick Wales
Costume design Rafael Bonachela
Lighting and stage design Benjamin Cisterne

Parenthesis

Louder Than Words
Sydney Dance Company
Sydney Theatre, Walsh Bay
Total running time: 90 mins (approx) including interval
4-18 October