The Chronicles

With her thrilling, often mass of dancers and heart-warming chorography, Stephanie Lake  is a regular visitor to the Sydney Festival.   For Colossus in 2020 she kept 50 young dancers crisply controlled in what was a compelling tug of war between individual initiative and group action.  After enduring Melbourne’s lockdowns with her partner and music collaborator Robin Fox, she then came roaring back post-Covid with the Manifesto (2023), an explosive tattoo of optimism with dancers backed by nine thunderous drummers.

In The Chronicles her group and duo choreography is here again dynamic and tender, even if we’re not wise to what propels the dancers and what Lake is actually Chronicling. It begins and ends with a stunning portrayl of a birth and a death, welcome bookends perhaps, but what’s between seems random and contradictory – even as baritone Oliver Mann sings that 80’s Alphaville hit, "Forever Young".

The dancers are all skilled and interestingly diverse in look, weight, cultural background, some feral or tattooed, others muscular or amazingly agile.  Dressed in Harriet Oxley’s muted loose streetwear and later bare-chested and all in elegant pleated grey dresses, they’re always running, hopping, galloping and leaping exuberantly across each.  

In lines they pass on waves of movement, intersect with other lines, or in queues wait their turn to touch, artfully support and release a fellow dancer (no matter their gender).   It’s heartening to watch this cohesive tribe, together or breaking into short attractive duos, even if these seem to have little relationship to the group.  

Fox’s folksy or elemental, beating soundscape drives the dancers and adds to the tribal feeling; it’s interrupted midway by the 32-strong Sydney Children’s Choir adding a classical voice from atop a gloriously verdant bank of grasses, later blooming with flowers (set by Charles Davis).

They sing a lament to earth and, especially when the kids assemble downstage with candles, the environmental reference is theatrical, obvious even, but not really articulated.  Perhaps it has something to do with the dancers’ lengthy jostling throwing hay over each other; it’s another engaging theatrical moment, offering more warmth than reason.

Lake calls The Chronicles a catharsis, a reflection on hope, and this work is certainly a sensual, attractive and even healing experience.  That’s arguably enough to enjoy, but perhaps the program explains it.  

Martin Portus

Photographer: Jacquie Manning