Shared Frequencies.

DANCE.

A 2011 oldie. Sydney Dance Company's Shared Frequencies @ Sydney Theatre.

Featuring Rafael Bonachela’s LANDforms and Jacopo Godani’s Raw Models

Sydney Dance Company’s world premiere season of Shared Frequencies is a double bill showcasing the talent of local and international dance, along with original music scores and live music accompaniment. The program consists of Artistic Director Rafael Bonachela’s LANDforms along with Jacopo Godani’s commissioned work Raw Models. This is the first time Australian audiences are seeing Godani’s work, and neither he nor Bonachela disappoint.

Godani’s Raw Models exhibits the bodies of seven very capable dancers, moving to an original score commissioned by SDC collaborators 48 Nord. The acoustic-electro sounds result in a beautifully chaotic mixture of music that powerfully initiates the movements of bodies. The beats and subtle melodies control the movement flow, yet crackling and static sounds juxtapose the incredible control and continuous flow the dancers produce. 

The stage is a melting pot of bodies in motion. Moving as if in liquid, curvaceous lines of limbs push the air away, stressing their extremities. The strong and versatile bodies of the dancers intertwine whilst each undulates, rippling and swelling. The bones become liquefied, spines and torsos curving and rolling, continuously unfolding within their personal space.

Head-rolls instigate incessant currents through the body, torsos playing with movement and positioning. Balletic lines are defused, with flexing hands feeling the pulsating rhythms; pulling and tearing, reaching and distilling. The dancers create the space when spiraling smoothly to the floor and back, and weaving through the space. They dot the stage with their bodies.

Godani’s clever use of bright white lighting leaves us wanting more and celebrates the vast use of space, as bodies appear, disappear, and reappear in lines and formations, creating shapes in general space and independently with their own limbs. From darkness come bodies. In moments of bodily contact these dancers hold a magnetic quality, holding and releasing each other in waves of momentum.

A particular highlight of Raw Models is the group work; quick, precise and technically skillful as dancers fall confidently to the floor and through horizontal and vertical space. They are poised. Ready for a challenge. Challenging each other. Challenging us.

Utilising all 15 dancers Bonachela’s Land Forms is the longer piece, but both share a beautiful obsession with movement-flow and, stylistically compliment each other well. The memorable beginning offers an incredible softness, with a single body flowing through the live accompaniment of Ezio Bosso, pianist and composer of the original score. Joining him throughout are Geoffrey Gartner on cello, Veronique Serret on violin, and Katie Noonan with vocals.

The dancers display incredible control and training, as the strength in the muscles ensure the extremities remain soft. Hanging limbs. The bodies contort, creating sharp angles of arms and legs contrasted to the curved lines created through the neck and back. Throughout the piece, the angles unfold, limbs open, and bodies curl and roll. Contractions dominate the on-stage vocabulary, as torsos bend over and in on themselves before opening out through the chest and back, elongating, stretching and extending in fluid motion.

Limbs cross bodies, flinging delicately. The lines are continuous extensions from the inside of the body, excelling in strength and ease of movement. This resonates in the use of weight, falling on and off their centers, passionately contracting.

Bonachela demonstrates a keen understanding of his dancer's surroundings, and his creation of the environment here is outstanding. During moments of movement other dancers enter into stillness, becoming aspects of the set before coming to life. We see the amazement of nature within the amazement of the human form. Smooth cyclical melodies provide comfort, and at times the music overtakes and becomes the hero of the piece. The swelling music is brilliantly complimented in conjunction with the choreography. Changing tempos highlights the shared dynamic between musicians and dancers. Noonan’s voice gives a sublimely delicate essence to the piece near the end, haunting and pure.

One movement of the piece sees light shone straight at us, as designed by Mark Dyson. Suddenly self-awareness is forced upon us, realizing ourselves in the equation. For a brief and inspired moment the attention is on us, before returning to the stage, to the dancers, and restoring the expected equilibrium of the performance. The light becomes obvious as dancers move amongst it, within it. Later, stems of light mark out the ground, forming foundations to be acknowledged with movement. Deliberate slithers of light are a controllable or perhaps uncontrollable force, which then transforms into squares of light. Dancers anguish, curling and uncurling amongst the tiles of the stage. The lighting becomes a performer, as dancers step in and out, bathe, and shed light.

The partner work is secure and captivating, as the dancers encompass each other, pushing and pulling in effortless coupling. The females and males are equally capable and their skill and versatility cannot be denied. The sex of the dancers becomes neutral and irrelevant, as partnerships swap and mix to display the prowess and power of the human form.

By close we have seen dramatics diminish to stillness, and a rain creates a dividing wall on the stage. Sprayed within a line of light, the dancers play with it. Feel it. Dance it. Live it.