Review: Sydney Dance Company, Love Lock and Forever and Ever
Presented in the Australian Dance Biennale hosted by Rising Festival
The Playhouse, Arts Centre
Reviewed Wednesday 3 June
Love Lock
Melanie Lane
Forever and Ever
Antony Hamilton
Dystopia was the theme of the night at Sydney Dance Company’s premiere of Love Lock and Forever and Ever, a double-bill program comprising two company works - Melanie Lane’s Love Lock and Antony Hamilton’s Forever and Ever.
Lane’s Love Lock was made on Sydney Dance Company in 2024, premiering at the Roslyn Packer Theatre and touring to the Brisbane Powerhouse that same year. This is the work’s first showing in Melbourne. The work opened to an empty stage infused with fog. Chirping sounds rang out through the theatre. In the fog, company dancer Timmy Blankenship emerges in full black unitard. With sinewy lines and articulated footwork, the artist presented an exaggerated neo-classical sequence. The soundscape changes to a powerful techno beat and the SDC ensemble join the stage dressed in variously constructed sleek black attire designed by Akira Isogawa. It’s been more than two years since I’ve seen Sydney Dance Company perform, and there are few faces on stage I recognise. Despite this, Lane’s Love Lock reveals the company style and physical archetype is still going strong - long, lithe bodies, incredibly toned, combining a strong basis of classical technique and with the depth control dynamism that characterises contemporary dance. Love Lock, however, didn’t reveal much more from the dancers than their athleticism and technical precision. Coming up against Lane’s exaggerated, theatrical, and sensual choreography, the SDC dancers looked disconnected and one-dimensional, seeming to focus so heavily on the conviction of their physical form that it conveyed overcompensation.
The concept for Love Lock is futuristic folklore meets deconstructed lovesong. Lane is renowned for her combining of folkloric references (witches, Greek mythology, fairytales) with futuristic aesthetics, but in Love Lock these associations were hard to identify. Rather, folklore references were touched on but abandoned too quickly, producing a vague and unresolved sense of otherworldliness. Similarly, the element of romance in the work’s concept fell flat. Whilst forms conjured a strong quality of passion (emphasising the expressiveness of the hands, the mouth, the chest, and the hips), the futuristic aspects of the work turned feelings of ‘love’ into something that felt closer to ecstatic masturbation. Whilst Love Lock was not without its compelling elements - technically strong dancers, rich concept, masterfully constructed costume and sound, and convincingly rhythmic choreography - the work fell prey to a sense of overcomplication. This, however, is an easy trap to fall into when working with a large cast of young, motivated dancers for whom ‘do less’ might not be the most natural approach.
After a short interval, the curtain reopens to Antony Hamilton’s Forever and Ever, revealing SDC dancer Naiara de Matos on a stark white stage, with a wiry black swing dangling down from the ceiling and two black bell shaped objects down-stage stage right. De Matos begins the work in total silence, whilst audience lights are still up. Her movements are simple, geometric and sequential, and her movement quality is curious. The sequence feels meditative: De Matos is disaffected, impartial and almost distant from the shapes that effortlessly emerge from her.
As the meditation ends, a strong bass initiates and De Matos is joined on stage by the rest of the company, half of whom are donning black cloaks and face masks with white pointy hand tubes, with the other half in white cloaks, with black face masks, carrying black, kettle bell shaped objects. The only visible face amongst the hooded figures is that of company dancer Piran Scott. This emergence of eerie hooded figures creates a palpable sense of disquiet, but the simplicity of their movements elevates the foreboding to the absurd. Shapes are minimal but repetitive; big cloaked scarecrow arms move up and down like windscreen wipers, and hips clunk side to side matter-of-factly. It is refreshing to be denied the opportunity to see skin or the contours of the dancer's bodies, with the hooded cloaks instead shifting focus to a more rudimentary perception of the bodies as moving objects in space. The combination also lends itself to cultural and historical science fiction associations: think Eyes Wide Shut, Doctor Who, Little Red Riding Hood. All this to say that Hamilton’s hoods reveal themselves to be a malleable symbol loaded with potential, inviting many associations ideas to be projected.
Scott approaches the hanging swing, raises his arms, and his cloak is lifted into the sky, initiating a dynamic male duo between himself and Sam Winkler. The rest of the cloaked dancers form a frame on one side of the stage and gesture energetically in movements that are a cross between ‘cutting shapes’ and flailing incoherently. This doesn’t sound like it would be a good thing - but it works. The strength of Hamilton’s approach with Forever and Ever lies in its absurdity. It provokes, without providing answers. In resisting clarity, abstract movements can be executed freely and with an energetic playfulness.
The momentum of the work ramps up as a group emerge in bright red tracksuits marked with black gestural forms, soon followed by a fierce female duo in bright yellow hoodies. Gradually, the cast removes their hooded cloaks to reveal minimalist athleisure attire, black shorts and sports bras, with various geometric shapes made from sports tape placed across the body. The speed of the electronic score has increased to doof-appropriate levels, and the dancers continue to cut shapes robotically, moving between unusual group formations and breaking off into duos and trios before slowly vacating the space. Eventually, the empty stage flashes blue and then all goes dark with one final burst of sound indicating the work's closure. It’s a fittingly anticlimactic and mysterious ending for a work which leaves all questions unanswered - like the performance equivalent of a conspiracy theory. The work vanishes from existence, leaving its ideas, its proposed alternative universe, feeling like a dream.
Love Lock and Forever and Ever showed in the Playhouse at the Arts Centre, Melbourne, Wednesday June 3-6, 2026. Presented in the Australian Dance Biennale, hosted by Rising Festival.
-Belle Beasley