Sydney Dance Company’s highly anticipated New Breed program, now in its 11th year, is designed to showcase emerging choreographic talent, to allow experimentation and encourage exciting fresh perspectives on dance. Choreographers compete to be accepted into the program that provides opportunities to collaborate with other artists, to show audiences what they are capable of and to contribute to the future of Australian dance.
This year’s dance makers, Amber McCartney, Siobhan McKenna, Piran Scott and Dean Elliott thrilled the opening night audience at Carriageworks on Wednesday, with four very different works that left many audience members asking each other which one was their favourite. Just as each choreographer brought their unique inspirations, skills and imaginations to the fore, those of us witnessing the choreography unfold made our own personal connections or engagements with sound, movement, lighting, costume and presentation.
I connected most with the joyful opening work, Breath, by company dancer Piran Scott. I could watch his piece over and over again. Scott has danced in Europe and Australia and his new work is billed as an expression of homecoming, drawing inspiration from Tim Winton’s novel Breath and the rhythms of our coastal lifestyle. Set to intoxicating music by guitarist John Butler with occasional sounds of the ocean, the choreography was distinguished by soft lyrical movements that ebbed and flowed like the tide and the waves.
Movements were open and free, with a sense of embracing a wide landscape and there was pleasure in the dance, reminding me of the exhilaration evident in surfers when they scan the horizon on a good day. Aleisa Jelbart’s costuming of the dancers in wide-legged white linen style trousers and neutral baggy shirts further enhanced the work’s references to the natural landscape.
Changing the tone and pace of movement, Dean Elliott’s Full In/Half Out focused adeptly on precision and power, with nice touches of humour, as he explored the relationship between athleticism and dance, drawing on his own earlier experiences as a gymnast.
This was a highly engaging work with a feel of abstract American modern dance - think Merce Cunningham or Stephen Petronio – with dancers clad in figure-hugging red sequined leotards executing sharp ballet moves contrasted with flowing organic movements. Shapes emerged and morphed and disappeared like coloured liquids seeping into gel, all set against a striking contemporary composition by Connor McMahon.
Say it Again, by Siobhan McKenna, takes its inspiration from conversation – the way voices ebb and flow when people talk and/or listen – and the movement features pauses and repetition embedded in spoken language. McKenna’s clever choreography included communication through slapping of body parts and muffled, scrunching sounds emitted from plastic components worn over or under the dancers’ predominantly white loose-fitting costumes. When the dancers started repeating short words I wanted the dialogue to expand into more realistic conversation, but then again perhaps McKenna was making a point that we are not all privy to what is said and done. Thought provoking.
The final dance of the night saw the stage shrouded in darkness for Amber McCartney’s mesmerizing work Leech. McCartney has drawn inspiration from science fiction and horror films, including Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and says she often likes to bring ‘something’ into the studio when she is creating. For this piece, it’s wearable body art. At first, it’s hard to make out what’s happening. Black shapes move on the very dimly lit stage, no flesh visible, but shiny white jogging shoes tell us there are dancers inside the blackness. There appear to be two sets of legs, but four heads. How is that? Four sets of legs and eight heads. Freaky. It has me hooked, trying to establish what is real and what is not. It’s fresh and enthralling. The soundscape from Alisdair and Robert Macindoe and Robert Downie is appropriately jarring.
Carriageworks provides such a great summer setting for this event, which is a must see for dance fans, if you can secure a ticket. New Breed is presented with support from The Balnaves Foundation and as the season concludes on 14 December, you’ll have to be quick or you’ll miss it. Carriageworks is at 245 Wilson St, Eveleigh. See Sydneydancecompany.com or email boxoffice@sydneydancecompany.com.
Reviewed by Julie Huffer