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: Rafael Bonachela
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…
Amy Hollingsworth at Expressions Dance Company: warrior for the human condition
Amy Hollingsworth can’t be too specific about the first season she is curating as artistic director of Brisbane-based Expressions Dance Company – details for 2020 will be announced later this year – but she can talk about the philosophy that secured her the job. EDC may have a core of only half a dozen dancers…
Bonachela/Nankivell/Lane, Sydney Dance Company
Roslyn Packer Theatre, Sydney, March 27 Bonachela/Nankivell/Lane ushers in Sydney Dance Company’s 50th anniversary celebrations with three works that foreground the dancers. There are appealing but unpretentious costumes and no sets. There are bodies in motion, music and lights, although perhaps a few more blackouts than desirable on one night. The relative simplicity could be seen as…
Sydney Dance Company, New Breed 2018
Carriageworks, Sydney, November 29. Holly Doyle’s sweet, sad, funny, goofy, utterly captivating Out, Damned Spot! is exactly why Sydney Dance Company’s New Breed exists and why it works. Doyle doesn’t have an extensive choreographic resumé but did have a big hit in this year’s annual season of short new works. She has an original voice worth nurturing….
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…
ab [intra], Sydney Dance Company
Roslyn Packer Theatre, Sydney, May 15. This one is all about the dancers. It’s about how, to the audience, they look, feel and taste. How astonishing they are in form and function. How magnificent the human body can be and how powerful its effects on an observer. On the dancers’ side of the fourth wall…
Sydney Dance Company: New Breed
Carriageworks, Sydney, November 30. What a great night of dance – all of it brand spanking new, performed by some of the best movers on the planet and offered to the public at $35 a ticket. Even when the quality is uneven New Breed, now in its fourth iteration, offers a lot of bang for…
2 One Another, Sydney Dance Company
Roslyn Packer Theatre, Sydney. October 5. Sydney Dance Company artistic director Rafael Bonachela clearly adores 2 One Another. Made in 2012, it was revived in 2013, 2014 and 2015, is much travelled and this season celebrates its 100th performance by making its first reappearance in Sydney. Next stop is Shanghai. Audiences love it too, and…
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…
deborah jones: FollowSpot 