The Sydney Dance Company’s show ‘2 One Another’ opened in Perth last night captivating the audience with their combination of tight syncopated moves, precision timing and graciously athletic leaps.
The company’s sixteen dancers delivered a performance that showcased Artistic Director Raphael Bonachela’s distinctive choreography.
“2 One Another is very much a celebration of the dancers,” said Bonachela of the work. “We spend a lot of time together on tour, like the next nine weeks, and also in the studio. You get to know each other very intimately and you go through a lot together. I work with an amazing group of individuals who have different qualities and I wanted to make a work that was dedicated to them, a work that was inspired by them as people.”
As a result the work is not a narrative based production, the movement show cases both the collective and the individual. Watching the sixteen dancers move as one really projects the idea of the company as a single entity, but the costumes each with an individual variation, solo performances and spotlight moments also allow each individual to shine.
To develop the work the company invited poet Samuel Webster into their studio. “I came across his work and I loved the way that he wrote,” said Bonachela. The dance master’s invitation to Webster was to come into the dancer’s world, share their space and just write about what he saw and felt while the dancers were improvising and interacting.
Bonacela admits there was a similarity in methodology between the dancers improvisation and Webster’s stream of consciousness poetry. “It was instinctive, raw and gut feelings,’ said Bonachela of Webster’s poetry, “beautiful at times, and sometime brutal writing.”
The dancers then created improvised choreography based on the poems, and again in turn Webster wrote more poems based on their interpretations.
To provide a soundtrack for the dancers Bonachela felt that a variety of existing music would be best. He went about collecting a variety of music from dark minimal electronica to modern classical works and long forgotten medieval pieces. Bonacella called on composer Nick Wales to help him sequence the music together and Wales ended up composing 20 minutes of new music to join the different pieces together.
Wales took the dancers in to the studio and got them to record readings of Webster’s poetry. The dancer’s recitals were then cut up and added into the soundtrack for the performance.
The end result is a powerful dance work that is to a large extent focused on delivering captivating movement.
The show is not an intellectual exercise but simply a joyful celebration of movement that eloquently captures the camaraderie of the company.
‘2 One Another‘ is playing at His Majesty’s Theatre’ until June 21st.
