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Four emerging choreographers have freshly forged four diverse works for the Sydney Dance Company’s NEW BREED showcase of contemporary dance.
Recently back from a choreographic tour of duty throughout Europe, Sophia Ndaba meticulously shreds the veil that straitjackets the human heart. She and her creatives use raw ochres and burnt umbers reminiscent of Rembrandt’s palette. Six dancers seduce the shroud of separation, that splits body from soul. Having beguiled the veil, sweet allure dispels estrangement. With tantalising irony, Ndaba’s THE VEIL OF SEPARATION strips severance bare to wed intimacy and love.
Jenni Large, inspired by Dracula, catapults nine vampires through your boundaries, brazenly breaking into your face. They thirst for your gaze, like fire enthralls a moth. Red hot passion flares from each dancer and kisses your eyes. They ignite into molten lead. Their melted fusion spits-out a sacrificial lamb, a reject, an outcast to be scoffed-down like crimson wine. Large’s SUCKER incandescently takes no prisoners.
Luke Hayward, having extensively worked with many of the world’s most innovative choreographers, presents his choreographic debut in his self-performed solo happening THE REMNANTS OF. Summoning dada, surrealism, lyricism, and postmodern art, Hayward unashamedly reads the audience in silence. All superfluity is ditched. Only when what is essential remains, does movement gel and words come. What unfolds when the here and now understands you? Answer: THE REMNANTS OF.
Charmene Yap, following an internationally lauded career as dancer and choreographer, is the Sydney Dance Company’s inaugural Rehearsal Associate. Using a Rothko-like square of luminously changing colour, Yap explores how a particular shade of pink has been observed to affect the human psyche. Baker-Miller pink, also known as P-618, Schauss pink, or Drunk-Tank pink, playfully pries-open a door to perception, impishly opens-up a path into consciousness, as well as throws down the gauntlet to how we make sense of human reactions. In DRUNK-TANK-PINK, accompanied by Alyx Dennison’s choral music, Yap gets the Sydney Dance Company crew to the crux of how what affects us pulls our strings.
The Sydney Dance Company’s NEW BREED is at Carriageworks until 17th December 2022.
Featured image : The Veil Of Seoaration. Pic Pedro Greig