SHARED FREQUENCIES
If you’ve seen the posters, you could be forgiven for imagining that the Sydney Dance Company’s new production, Shared Frequencies, is essentially sex on stage.
You’d be part right. The first work, Italian choreographer Jacopo Godani’s Raw Models, is undeniably sexy. It is also slick, sinister, and not a little unnerving: black-clad figures writhing and colliding detachedly to the dystopian electronic sounds of Germany’s 48nord. There is a sense that we are watching bodies, not people; and that these bodies connect because they can, and may as well. The dancers carry a hint of the cruel lover about them.
It is a far cry from what is to follow: Sydney Dance Company Artistic Director Rafael Bonachela’s LANDforms.
If Raw Models is steel and titanium, LANDforms is ochre and desert grit. The earthy LANDforms serves as a continuation of Bonachela’s interest in the elemental, following on from his 2009 work We Unfold, which was inspired by oceans (water) and from his 2010 work 6 Breaths, which was inspired by the act of breathing (air).
LANDforms benefits greatly from composer Ezio Bosso’s accompanying music, and the pure, ethereal vocals of Australian singer Katie Noonan. The dancers flow from corner to corner, each taking his or her turn: this is a dance of patience. It is sensual rather than merely sexy; a reminder that after dark comes light.
Until Apr 16, Sydney Theatre, Hickson Rd, Walsh Bay, $40-75, 9250 1999, sydneydancecompany.com
