ENGINE

Renowned for its outstanding choreography, impressive set design and moving soundscapes, Sydney Dance Company (SDC) returns with a striking triple bill to leave audiences in Darwin and Alice Springs in dead set awe.

WORDS TIERNEY WHITE
IMAGE WENDELL TEODORO

SYDNEY DANCE COMPANY is always a hit with the Territory crowd, many enthralled by their triple-bill performance of Ascent in 2023. The company’s latest offering Engine is set to move us in the same way.

It features three performances from renowned choreographers, SDC Artistic Director Rafael Bonachela, Fran Diaz, and Melanie Lane, presenting an exhilarating performance of bold, fearless dance.

Up first is Rafael Bonachela’s The Journey Itself Is Home. This new work features music by Grammy Award-winning composer Bryce Dessner and inspired by 17th-century Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō, that world premiered at Sydney Opera House this year.

Next up is acclaimed Australian/Javanese choreographer Melanie Lane’s Love Lock – a re-imagined folk dance of the future. The work celebrates the binding ability of dance to move, warn and empower, and showcases costume design by celebrated Australian fashion designer Akira Isogawa, and a score composed by UK electronic artist Clark.

Rounding out this powerful performance is The Mass Ornament by the incredible Berlin-based Spanish choreographer, Fran Diaz. This 13-minute piece, commissioned by contemporary dance company Hessisches Staatsballett and performed in Australia with its kind permission, is a hypnotic work set to the music of Henryk Górecki reimagines Siegfried Kracauer’s seminal 1927 essay.

Diaz compellingly transforms the concept of mass movement into an exploration of connection and collectivity, where individuality coexists, not in opposition, but in dialogue.

Melanie Lane has collaborated with SDC over the years and was selected by Bonachela to develop WOOF, a work that toured Australia and went on to became part of their 50th anniversary program. She says the three works are all unique, but with a common thread.

“I think the three works are really very different from each other. They're very diverse, but I think all three works have this really strong drive inside of them, in very different ways.”

Lane’s contribution, Love Lock, was inspired by her travels and the universal language of love.

“Love Lock, I would say, has got this sort of intoxicating drive to it because it's all about this idea of the mantras of love songs and deconstructing them and creating this folkloric dance that just sort of gets more and more ecstatic,” she says.

“My work's always based around mythology and speculative fiction. So, I wanted to make a folk dance that kind of exists in the future. And then I was thinking about ‘what is this folk dance and celebrating?’ I was travelling a lot at the time, I was listening to a lot of music and sort of just recognising that love songs are such, I guess, an iconic part of pop culture.”

Lane was invited by Bonachela to make a work for the whole ensemble for Engine, which she says was a real gift to be able to play with.

“I was thinking a lot about group dances, whether it be in the club, like a rave, or whether it be those beautiful, sort of, community dances, rituals, folk dances. I knew I wanted to make something about that energy of dancing together, and I knew I wanted to make it kind of a folk dance,” she says.

“If you think about how far the idea of the poetry of love exists in sort of ancient poetry all the way up to pop music, that it's this kind of mantra that we all are really familiar with. Love L ock ended up being a folk dance about this matter of love songs or love poetry. It started from deconstructing a bunch of like really classic love songs and then creating this new dance. So, the dancers, they dance, but they also vocalise in singing as well.”

A real sweetener to this particular performance is the soundtrack by Clark. Lane and Clark are longtime collaborators, creatively, and in life.

“Okay, here's a secret. He is my husband! We've been working together for more than 20 years because that's how we've been together for,” Lane says.

“I think there's something really playful and fun, and like kind of wild and crazy about this work. It was just really fun to go there with him, because it does sort of go somewhere quite delirious and ecstatic. And I think that's kind of easy to do with someone that you know so well.

“You can be silly together and sort of dream up really wild things together and not feel insecure or embarrassed about those kinds of ideas, you know? So, I feel like, being able to do that with someone that you're close to just opens up all these possibilities, and you can really just go there.”

Don’t miss your chance to see some of the best dancers our country has to offer, with some of the best choreography this country has to offer, with some of the best creative costume and sound this country has to offer. Triple threat.

WHEN WED 12 AUG | 7.30PM
AT AANT CENTRE
COST $40-$65
INFO yourcentre.com.au

WHEN SAT 15 AUG | 7.30PM
AT ARALUEN ARTS CENTRE
COST $55-$62
INFO araluenartscentre.nt.gov.au