Until 6 April, Sydney Dance Company and its artistic director Rafael Bonachela will hold a triple bill production at the Roslyn Packer Theatre in Walsh Bay, headlined by new work, CINCO.
CINCO melds five virtuosic dancers, the award-winning lighting of Damien Cooper and the imagination and skill of fashion designer Bianca Spender with celebrated Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera’s achingly magnificent String Quartet #2 from the mind of Bonachela.
“The starting point for this work was the music, which is always a really big part of my process,” said Bonachela. “In this case I found Alberto Ginastera’s String Quartet No. 2, which I love. I’ve never heard of his string quartets before and they’ve never been used for dance. That was really the starting point for me. The music is in five movements. I wanted to work with five dancers and we’re also celebrating 50 years of Sydney Dance Company. If you look back, a lot of my works have numbers in them, so with Cinco it’s quite a coincidence that the music has five movements, and it’s also five decades of the Company. It all became about the number five.”
Complemented for the first times by Australian designer Bianca Spender, the costumes of the dancers – other than being a delight in the movement of fabric to behold – fully explore the remainder of the tale Bonachela tries to tell.
Through movement, music and space interact in harmony; working on and with one another in a culmination of muted tones, fluid movement and spacial beauty that is just truly and completely absorbing to watch and be mesmerised by.
Bookended by other works Neon Aether by Gabrielle Nankivell and WOOF by Melanie Lane, stark contrasts from the fluidity of the exploration of music, it’s a production worth taking note of.
Neon Aether is a pastel lit wonderland of the exploration of space, inspired by a simple stretch into nothingness by its choreographer.
Dancers move like harbingers of light and dark, punctuated by spacial commentary akin to the first landing of man on the moon, in an on-off presentation of perfectly synchronised bodily magic.
Meanwhile in WOOF, a hedonistic expression of interaction, desire, brood-like displays of in-sync choreography and carnal writhing come together in a crescendo of black ink-covered manifestation.
It’s the display of a post-human world of primal seduction and belonging, driven by a dramatic musical score by acclaimed British electronic artist Clark.
Undoubtedly a favourite by many, WOOF is a high to end the triple bill on; celebrating not only the work of all three choreographers, but the three tiers of sensitivity they’re able to display through dance; as well as how fittingly the works complement each other.
CINCO, Neon Aether and WOOF are dances to see in this year’s presentation by the Sydney Dance Company in Sydney 26 March – 13 April; Canberra 2 – 4 May; Melbourne 8 – 11 May, National Tour 16 May – 17 Aug.