Dancing is a routine part of any healthy, fun-filled life. Hell, I’ve been known to get down with some choice moves post 2am in my time, arms in the air, clicking fingers passionately while mouthing the words to Toto’s ‘Africa’.
This, however, is far removed from the dancing I saw performed last night by the Sydney Dance Company at the Southbank Theatre.
The audience was treated to two performances; the first, William Forsythe’s ‘Quintett’ featured, you guessed it, five dancers rolling and leaping around each other in a strangely alluring and deeply melancholic depiction of what seemed to be a physical interpretation of relationships in flux.
Three men and two women, all dressed in a manner that suggested courtship, cavorted in and out of each other’s company, interacting with and reacting to each other in what I perceived to be various manifestations of acceptance and rejection.
The music was a haunting loop of an old man’s single repeated verse, recorded by the composer in 1971 while working on a project about homeless people at Elephant and Castle tube station in South London:
Jesus’ blood never failed me yet
It’s the only thing I know, for he loves me so
The music reminded me of the Beats, of Ginsberg, Burroughs and Kerouac; the dancers performing as they would write – a beautiful haunting romance about the doom that, as sure as night follows day, ends every love affair.
The second, Rafael Bonachela’s ‘Frame of Mind’ featured the whole company, all dressed in black but all stridently individual with distinct personalities.
Occasionally all would be leaping in accord with each other, perfectly in time and synchronised before, suddenly, unity would break down and some would stop and walk away, then smaller sub-groups would take-up break-down then reform in differing constitutions.
The company comes in all shapes and sizes – tall, short, slim, solid. It presents a strong visual resonance; that you are watching a sample of humanity go about their business, albeit one invested with grace and movement of the truly athletic and artistic.
Each dancer, in the down-time part of their performance, seemed to stop and wander to points of the set in a manner that you or I would walk to the shops. They’d casually saunter across stage while one or more of their peers danced. Sometimes they’d lock eyes with a fellow and seem to acknowledge them, except rather than shake hands or wave, as you or I would, they’d produce an inspired burst of evocative and mesmerising contortions and movements that caused amazing wonder and reflective thoughts to bubble in my mind.
I was specially taken with the lighting and stage direction of each piece – simple, powerful yet decidedly restrained. For example: a giant window frame and on/off light switch that, when flicked on by a dancer, abruptly sprang the second performance into motion much like the sudden burst of music that heralds the start of Star Wars or Pulp Fiction.
I cannot commend the Sydney Dance Company’s dual performances enough. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and am still tingling at the memory of it. Get in quick if you wish to book, the show run ends on 16 May.
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