For many years, choreographers Rafael Bonachela and Jacopo Godani were mutual admirers, even before they met. “I remember him as a dancer of the Frankfurt Ballet when I used to be a dancer myself in Rambert and would go and see the company,” Bonachela says. “Jacopo was one of those dancers in the '90s – those dancers that became the Frankfurt Ballet together with William Forsythe.”
Godani had also “raved” about Bonachela’s choreography. When the pair did finally meet for the first time at a dance conference at the Venice Biennale in 2009, it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship and professional relationship. Bonachela had just been appointed artistic director of Sydney Dance Company (SDC), so he took the opportunity to ask Godani if he would accept a commission for his new group of dancers. “And he did!” he says, with undiminished delight all these years later. It was a felicitous agreement: the resulting work, Raw Models, had audiences gasping at its originality and power.
Now that friendship has borne further fruit. Both men are now artistic directors of legendary companies: Godani is now leader of the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company(DFDC), stepping into the shoes of internationally renown William Forsythe. The companies have joined forces to present SDC’s first co-production with a European company. Bonachela will create a new work, titled Lux Tenebris, which will be performed first by SDC in its home theatre in February, then by DFDC at its home theatre in September in Germany.
Both choreographers are jumping out of their skins at the prospect.
“This new partnership represents a momentous achievement in our international programming activity,” Bonachela says, “and a prized opportunity for showcasing Sydney Dance Company as a creative force on the world stage.”
As an international touring company, SDC has often performed overseas, but this is a different arrangement in that an existing SDC creation will be presented by an overseas company, thus giving exposure to an all Australian production. All the Australian creative crew – such as composer Nick Wales and stage/lighting designer Benjamin Cisterne – will be involved.
Both companies will invest their resources, making a bigger and better resourced production, a move that Bonachela believes is a first for an Australian contemporary company. Examples of such co-productions exist in theatre and ballet – Bonachela points to the Royal New Zealand/Queensland Ballet collaboration of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which premiered first in Wellington, NZ and opens in Brisbane in April. “It was very beautiful and spectacular and and you could tell that the effort of two companies had come together. As we all know things aren't getting easier in art funding . .
Godani describes the collaboration as “a bridge of art communication, not only with another country but also with another continent”.
With SDC Bonachela has had the luxury of a group of dancers who are all familiar with his way of working. With the DFB, he will have the challenging task of restaging his work on a company of unknown dancers. However, as he reminds us, as a freelance choreographer before coming to Australia he routinely worked with different companies. And the DFDC dancers are “wow!” he laughs. Individually they hale from many different places and have only been with Jacopo since his appointment mid-last year. “So they are in the process of familiarising themselves with a new choreographer. Dancers today have to be open and versatile. Jacopo’s dancers are the sort of dancers who are curious, not just doing one thing all the time.”
Both directors hope that this first “bridge” across continents will be one of many more steps in an ever deepening and fruitful artistic friendship.
Lux Tenebris will have its world premiere on Monday February 29, 2016, at the Roslyn Packer Theatre Walsh Bay, Sydney, under the umbrella title of "CounterMove", on a double bill with Alexander Ekman’s Cakti (the encore of another audience hit).
The German premiere will take place on September 8, at the Bockenheimer Depot, Frankfurt am Main / HELLERAU – European Center for the Arts, in Dresden.
- KAREN VAN ULZEN
See http://www.sydneydancecompany.com/productions/countermove/#dates-and-times
For Emma Sandall’s review of Raw Models, go here
See Emma Sandall’s EXCLUSIVE interview with Jacopo Godani, artistic director of the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company, in the April/May issue of ‘Dance Australia’.