De Novo – Sydney Dance Company

Overview

Long the butt of jokes about its obscurity, contemporary dance responds to its accusers with a successful dose of humour in Sydney Dance Company's first season for 2013, De Novo.

De Novo is organised into two halves. The first is Rafael Bonachela's own new work, Emergence, which is as coldly attractive as a catwalk model. In contrast, the second half features two smaller pieces, Fanatic by Larissa McGowan and Cacti by Alexander Ekman, that are like the wildly fun eccentrics to be found hanging around a Fashion Week afterparty.

The instigating thought for Bonachela in Emergence is the revelation of something previously concealed out of a moment of collision. To prime this process, Bonachela collaborated with composers Nick Wales and Sarah Blasko, fashion designer Dion Lee and lighting designer Benjamin Cisterne, and it is clear that their individual talents have all been shaped in Emergence through the principles of collision, contrast, revelation and shifting structures.

The resulting work is stark and architectural. The dancers are bodies-as-architecture, they move in tension with sculptural light fixtures, overlocking layers of score and sound, and are costumed in Lee's hard-lined silhouettes - it is very clear that Bonachela and his team are in thematic unison. This unity comes at a price however, and of the three pieces in De Novo, Emergence may be too aloof for audiences not accustomed to high concept contemporary dance.

Bonachela's programming seems to acknowledge this, as he warms his audience in the second half with McGowan and Ekman's more accessible pieces.

Larissa McGowan's Fanatic first appeared in 2012's Spring Dance event, Contemporary Women, and it is well-deserving of a longer appearance on a Sydney stage. The premise is straightforward and timely: an alternating cast (on opening night this featured dancers Natalie Allen, Thomas Bradley and Chris Aubrey) channel a YouTube feed full of fans commenting on the Alien and Predator films.

Fanatic combines three choreographic strands: dancers lip synch the words of fans who are disappointed with the latest Alien vs Predator flop; dancers jolt in abstract sequences that rhythmically match the machine-gun opinions of online complaints; and, most enjoyably, there are moments where McGowan recreates action sequences and horrific aliens that could easily have spurted straight out of a Blu-Ray feature, and yet are very much still an act of dance. Natalie Allen especially leaves no doubt that she shares some DNA with Lieutenant Ellen Ripley.

Concluding De Novo's mixed bill is Cacti, the Australian premiere of Swedish-born choreographer Alexander Ekman. Mercurial in form, Cacti is a hilarious essay that pushes the white elephant straight into the spotlight: modern art doesn't have to mean anything in particular, and you're not stupid if you respond in a different way to the cultural elite. To address this, Ekman guides the Company dancers through a series of absurd, beautifully executed sequences involving an orchestra of bodies and stringed instruments, domineering lights, a duet of immensely cute inner monologues and, as labelled on the box, a chorus of cacti.

De Novo is a smart programme, and would make for a well-measured degustation with which to introduce friends to contemporary dance – but be prepared for a couple of debates after the show.

Image by Peter Greig.