Carriageworks, Sydney, December 6 The mysteries of dance and dancemaking are great. What drives the need to watch this person closely and not that one? Why does a work speak to something deep within while another is superficially entertaining? How is it that one is engaged intellectually and emotionally with one piece of dance while…
Tag: Jesse Scales
Bonachela/Obarzanek, Sydney Dance Company
Roslyn Packer Theatre, Sydney, November 2 What better way to mark a milestone birthday than by getting some of the old gang back together again? Gideon Obarzanek’s Us 50, choreographed for Sydney Dance Company’s 50th anniversary program, returned to the stage some of SDC’s most memorable artists, among them Bradley Chatfield, Wakako Asano, Sheree da…
Forever & Ever, Sydney Dance Company
Roslyn Packer Theatre, Sydney, October 18. Antony Hamilton says his new work for Sydney Dance Company developed from thoughts about order, chaos, human nature and popular culture. And yes, you can see that (a state of grace that, alas, is not always the case with choreographers’ program notes). But Hamilton’s ideas are for pondering afterwards. In…
Orb, Sydney Dance Company
Full Moon, choreographed by Cheng Tsung-lung, Ocho, choreographed by Rafael Bonachela. Sydney Dance Company, Roslyn Packer Theatre Walsh Bay, May 1. At first glance the two works in Sydney Dance Company’s Orb look quite different but they are close kin under the skin and together make an exceptionally absorbing double bill. Cheng Tsung-lung, who choreographed…
New Breed, Sydney Dance Company
Carriageworks, Sydney, November 29. Who knew gloom could come in so many shades? This year’s New Breed program must have tested the ingenuity of Benjamin Cisterne, Sydney Dance Company’s go-to man for lighting design, but he came up trumps, magnificently meeting the challenge of finding four different ways of illuminating darkness. The program is curated…
Untamed: Sydney Dance Company
Wildebeest and Anima. Roslyn Packer Theatre Walsh Bay, Sydney, October 20. In the double bill Untamed, Gabrielle Nankivell’s Wildebeest and Rafael Bonachela’s Anima come at the same question – what is our true, essential nature? – from quite different perspectives. Nankivell sets humankind’s most primal impulses against the slick, guarded sophistications of modern life. The…
Triptych
Sydney Dance Company with ACO2 and Katie Noonan. Roslyn Packer Theatre Walsh Bay, Sydney, September 29. BENJAMIN Britten was in his 20s when he wrote the three works to which Rafael Bonachela responds so ardently in Triptych. Innocence, desire, joy, playfulness and sensuality all have their role in the music and the evocation of the…
Quintett, Frame of Mind
Sydney Theatre, March 9 and 10. IT was a great coup for Rafael Bonachela to secure William Forsythe’s Quintett for Sydney Dance Company. It is a jewel of the contemporary repertoire with so many facets and colours it could be seen again and again without exhausting its possibilities. And to see it danced as was…
Women to the fore
New Breed, Sydney Dance Company, Carriageworks, Sydney, November 4 AN enduring issue in dance is the predominance of male choreographers. This is overwhelmingly evident in ballet; less so in contemporary dance. Nevertheless, if you look at Sydney Dance Company’s programs over the past few years, the choreographers invited to join artistic director Rafael Bonachela on…
deborah jones: FollowSpot 