Bangarra Dance Theatre, Bangarra Studio Theatre, Sydney. November 19.

ONE of the hot topics of conversation in dance is the under-representation of women in choreography. The situation is much better in contemporary dance than in ballet, but there is still disparity. Bangarra’s Dance Clan 3 therefore had a great deal going for it before a step was taken. The program, part of the Corroboree Sydney festival, consists of new works by four women from the company.

There is one overwhelmingly positive impression in that each work is distinguished by the clarity and resonance of the image-making. This isn’t terribly surprising given Bangarra’s sumptuous visual appeal, but good to see the DNA being passed on.

To take the pieces in order of appearance, Tara Gower’s Nala opens with a delightful vignette of being at the outdoor cinema in Broome that turns into a kind of clog dance with jumbo-sized potato crisp packets as footwear (trust me, it works). In Jasmin Sheppard’s Macq there is a strikingly lovely image of hanging men, all the more unsettling for the beauty of its composition. In Deborah Brown’s excellent film Dive, bulbous diving helmets are the entrée into a world of underwater magic. And in Yolande Brown’s Imprint, a woman’s body is tenderly adorned with the colours of the earth and there is a final gesture of great simplicity and wealth of meaning.

Also in the unsurprising category was the occasional over-reliance on familiar Bangarra shapes in Nala, Macq and Imprint. The choreographers are new to the game. But Bangarra’s style is deeply embedded in the bodies of its dancers and there’s no danger of mistaking this work for that of another company.  It would have been brilliant to see Gower, Sheppard and Deborah Brown rely more fully on their own interpretation of the house style, because their pieces were absolutely at their best when most individual.

To pick just a couple of moments, Macq powerfully and movingly sets colonial might against indigenous resistance and includes a potent, anguished solo for the oppressor. On opening night Daniel Riley was in astonishing form. In Imprint, which is inspired by the Batik project to support native title claim, cloth is used as tether, cocoon, personal covering and artwork. Senior dancer Elma Kris was, as she always is, a luminous presence.

For a studio season of short new works, Dance Clan 3 is remarkably rich.

Until December 1.

This review first appeared in The Australian on November 21.