Image by Ken Butti.
Since taking over Sydney Dance Company in 2008, Spanish-born Artistic Director Rafael Bonachela has created eight new works for the ensemble, thus putting his very individual stamp on the company’s repertoire. The lyrical style of Bonachela’s work, almost neo-classical in places, has rightly won wide acclaim.
We last saw SDC in Perth in 2011, with the very beautiful we unfold. This year’s visit brings another of Bonachela’s works, 2 One Another, which can do nothing but further the company’s reputation here in the West. 2 One Another took away three gongs from the 2013 Australian Dance Awards and two from the 2012 Green Room Awards. It is, therefore, an ideal touring vehicle to attract new audiences.
Touring keeps SDC busy. Neither is the company slack on other fronts: they run one of the busiest dance tuition programs in the country, with classes being offered to the general public in nearly every form of dance from Ballet to Zumba. Furthermore, this year they are running a pre-professional program for young dancers, who can leave at the end of the year with a Certificate 4 in dance.
Bonachela seems to thrive on collaboration, being inspired by the musicians, writers and other creatives who contribute to his work. In fact, collaboration must be one of the hallmarks of the company, as is evident in 2 One Another.
The driving electronic soundtrack, mixed by Bob Scott from input by Nick Wales and Rafael Bonachela, is eclectic in its sources. The opening section draws on the work of Spanish composer Murcof, bracketed with verse by Samuel Webster. Often the words blended into the music so the readers’ voices became instruments, with the meaning of the text taking second place. It gave us two lovely duets as well as some striking ensemble work. The music also included Monterverdi’s beautiful ‘Lamento della Ninfa’, sung by Cantata Amoroso.
The second movement featured some lovely baroque string playing and gave several company members short solos. The third movement, with original music by Nick Wales, nicely caught the swings between high and low that characterise the human condition: very aptly, he named it ‘Dark Half’. It gave us several duets, a solo and a trio, building up to a powerful finale that I thought might actually end the performance.
But no, there was more! Sadly, however, the fourth movement, set to ‘Lidzenuma Ainavas’ by Latvian composer Peteris Vasks was perhaps less successful than its predecessors. Throughout the first three sections, the dancers wore various combinations of blue-black allovers (although in many cases they were bitsovers) which, while intriguing, neither commented on the piece nor detracted from it. However, for the last section, the dancers each wore a garment that resembled a toga crossed with a leotard – in scarlet! I imagine this section was somehow intended to show day after night, sunlight after shadow, triumph after failure. On the other hand, it could equally well have been a visual representation of anger. I was left quite puzzled by the closing duet, which concluded with the very large Andrew Crawford sitting on a bridge created from the contortions of the very small Juliette Barton. It was beautifully performed, of course – everything this company does is beautifully performed – but it left me scratching my head and wondering what I’d missed. Going by snatches heard in the foyer afterwards, many other heads were being scratched, too. For this reason, I didn’t love 2 One Another quite as much as we unfold, but it is nevertheless a beautiful piece of work and well worth seeing. If you missed it in Perth, consider chasing it to one of the country showings.
Nevertheless, the blurb’s description of 2 One Another as ‘A startling, high-octane shot across the bows of contemporary dance,’ is nothing less than the truth. 2 One Another is indeed ‘an exuberant celebration of the power of movement’. I suspect the dancers themselves may have had input into the choreography, especially in the small group sections. One lovely touch was the way one dancer would start a movement and a partner would finish it. This happened often enough for me to think it was deliberate, but ‘deliberate’ doesn’t necessarily mean there was a conscious decision on the part of the creator. Creativity and collaboration move in mysterious ways, their wonders to perform.
Special mention must be made of Benjamin Cisterne’s amazing lighting. Sometimes anticipating the music’s crescendos and decrescendos and sometimes highlighting them, the effects frequently seemed to form part of the musical score, binding its many and varied parts into a cohesive whole. Overall, the lighting contributed a lot to the work’s success.
Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 stars
2 One Another
Sydney Dance Company
Choreographer: Rafael Bonachela
Original Music: Nick Wales
Design: Tony Assnessl
Lighting Design: Benjamin Cisterne
Sound: Adam Iuston
Dance Director: Amy Hollingsworth
His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth
www.sydneydancecompany.com
18-21 June
Mandurah: 25 June
Albany: 28 June
Bunbury: 2 July
Geraldton: 5 July
