Bonachela / Nankivell / Lane

Bonachela / Nankivell / Lane, performed by Sydney Dance Company, comprises three works, each by a different choreographer: Neon Aether, by Gabrielle Nankivell; Cinco, by Rafael Bonachela; and WOOF, by Melanie Lane, the three being set to music composed respectively by Luke Smiles, Alberto Ginastera, and “Clark” and danced by members of Sydney Dance Company.

Neon Aether’s intent was to convey a space-age otherworldliness, and that it did.  With atmospheric lighting and sparse astronautical costumes nicely complementing its space-mission-control soundtrack, the dance was certainly abstract and at times suggested sophisticated machinery, but was never lifeless.  Rather, it was organic and frequently graceful, even suggesting the evolution of a superorganism in some distant time and place.  The role of a dancer who for a long time did little but observe remains unexplained; perhaps she represented Mission Control.

Cinco’s soundtrack, by comparison, was rather more frenetic, and its thunderous low notes were more threatening.  The dance, although it echoed in parts the most traditional ballets, sustained an urgency that was unsettling.  Bonachela notes that his mathematical approach to this dance was softened (thankfully) by his collaborators.  It too had many moments of gracefulness.

WOOF, reprised from Sydney Dance Company’s New Breed 2017 season, depicts a “reinvention of community” initially through frozen tableaux accompanied by a humming arising from the dancers themselves.  Yet the dancers’ characters clearly conveyed an absence of intention of will, of desire, even perhaps of perception.  If this makes the dance sound uninteresting, it was not.  It held surprise, complexity, and visual drama, matching well the soundtrack’s wide-ranging styles, resolving the characters’ gradually apparent organic breakdown in a climax visually rich and revealing.

The dancers’ masterfulness in every piece demonstrates the rightfulness of Sydney Dance Company’s place on the world stage.  Their energy, strength, precision, and perfect coordination, as well as the prodigious memories they exhibit in dancing these long-form pieces with few musical mnemonics, mark them as top talent in their field.  It would be fascinating to see them have the opportunity to dance to choreography that allowed their natural graciousness to the fore, but in their hands and feet even the most machine-like steps become something to pique curiosity and wonder.

John P. Harvey

Image: Sydney Dance Company, in Cinco, a work in Bonachela / Nankivell / Lane.  Photographer: John P. Harvey.