Grey Rhino

Grey Rhino apparently describes how we so wilfully ignore the warnings that big impact disasters are coming.

Impending apocalypse has long been a favourite theme of contemporary dance; nowadays our passivity in the face of it surely has a little more bite.

Sydney Dance Company stalwart Charmene Yap and multimedia-loving choreographer Cass Mortimer Eipper present seven dancers moving attractively, but ordinarily, across a large white square in one of the huge Carriageworks bays.  

They’re dressed in pastel-clouded casual wear (Aleisa Jelbart);  and through their dancing project an idle sense of some force beyond. Dominating from above is a matching large white square bank of lights which increasingly through the hour-long show hovers up and down above their world.

Alyx Dennison’s eclectic soundtrack darts through snaps of domestic talk, huge explosions, grinding noise, booming rhythms and high energy music, with even a bit of opera.  At times the dancers swing into energetic, even frenzied, choreography, which engages us but the shifts are inexplicable.  We presume it’s some impending disaster; Martin Del Amo is the dramaturg.

Damien Cooper’s sharp lighting, snapping quickly from bright to subdued intensity, from above lighting to angled, maintains our interest in the dancers. The choreography successfully characterises individual dancers, in relation to the group, but it’s a sparse inspiration given the magnitude of the theme. The lighting and soundtrack take the honours.  

Martin Portus

Photographer: Daniel Boud