The Spring Dance Festival is about to burst
upon the Sydney Opera House, with a program curated for the first time this
year by Sydney Dance Company artistic director, Rafael Bonachela.
Of the international acts, the first to appear is Dunas, the Australian premiere of a collaboration between contemporary dancer Sidi Larbi Cherkouai and flamenco dancer, Maria Pages.
Pages is one of the world’s most celebrated flamenco dancers, and has toured the world as a solo artist and with her own company (though she has never performed in Australia). Some might remember her for her appearances in the three flamenco films by Carlos Saura, but she is also regarded as a modern flamenco artist, rather than purely traditional.
Dunas (Dunes) sets out to create a dialogue between highly structured flamenco and the eclecticism that is Cherkaoui’s contemporary style. The work is inspired by the undulating landscapes of sand dunes and desert.
“It’s visually stunning, with live projections, an element of technology alongside dance,” enthuses Bonachela. “They have an incredible ensemble of six live musicians coming with them. The music mixes Spanish, Arabic and contemporary flavour, and beautiful flamenco singing.”
Cherkaoui (and his collaborator, Damien Jalet) is based in Brussels in Belgium. The company performed Babel at the 2011 Sydney festival. Bonachela was in the audience: “Australian audiences in general don’t stand up – it takes a lot – you have to train them to clap,” he observes. “But I saw a whole theatre getting up as one and giving a standing ovation."
When: August 22 to 25
Where: Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House
Opening on the same night is Weight x 3 and
2, by Beijing’s
Tao Dance Theatre. This company was founded in 2008 by Tao Ye, the
choreographer of these two works.
Weight x 3 will be presented as two dance pieces, as pared-back as the music by Steve Reich that accompanies them. In these performances, choreographer Tao makes the human body the focus of the stage, with minimal set, prop, lighting or costume design. With just two performers in the first movement, and one in the second, these elegantly minimal dances reflect the company’s fundamental philosophy of using the performers’ bodies as the defining element for each piece.
The company’s newest work, 2, is a duet including a performance by Tao himself. The musical score has been developed from recordings of the company's own conversations during rehearsal and daily life. The resulting performance is both hypnotic and thought provoking, with minimalistic movements developing into virtuosic patterns to express the abstract idea of two souls in conversation.
“I confess that my preconceptions about Chinese contemporary dance had to be thrown out the window,” Bonachela says of his first encounter with Tao Dance. “It was so unique and masterful, like nothing I had ever seen before. A very unique language and way of moving and very incredible quality.
"It is very virtuosic also, and a very minimalist aesthetic.
“I read that one of the reason Tao doesn’t have titles, and instead uses numbers and symbols, is so that people don’t have preconceptions about what they’re going to see. This is something I relate to, so it was very refreshing.”
When: August 22 to 26
Where: Studio, Sydney
Opera HOuse
Also at the Studio is the iOU solo dance series, a series of solos performed and choreographed by independent artists. The program was first put together as a self-initiated project, and Bonachela was in the audience.
“It was an evening they put together to say thank you to the IO Myer studio [at the University of NSW],” Bonachela says, “where they had been doing a lot of research. And I was like, guys, that was amazing!”
Bonachela was particularly taken by the fact that, at interval, one of the dancers started cooking a barbecue, while after the show another played his guitar. “It was so Australian – barbecue meets contemporary dance. For me was very touching and very funny. And quite weird. They were unique people doing unique things and afterwards we were all having a sausage.”
The sausages will be included in the Spring Dance presentation.
When: August
22 to 25
Where: Studio,
Sydney Opera House
Keep checking this website for more Spring Dance information!
See http://springdance.sydneyoperahouse.com/
Enter the Spring Dance STREET, STRIKE, SNAP competition! Upload your best dance pose to WIN the new iPad 32G or a $100 Westfield Voucher. Enter as many times as you like! http://on.fb.me/Rou9os
See Spring Dance photo shoot here