New Creations: Bonachela and Linder

Overview

Audiences attending this, the first of Sydney Dance Company's 'New Creations', will find a double-bill that draws on very different parts of the human being. Adam Linder, Australian-born and German-based choreographer, has tripped into the well of collective unconscious and brought back a series of visions that explore the fractured nature of our identities. In contrast, Rafael Bonachela seeks the physical energy of human breath and how this muscular activity can create a colourful palette of emotional states.

These pieces are not a simple mind-body split, however. Linder's Are We That We Are demonstrates the physical emanations of a psyche in conflict, opening with a beautiful image of a man-as-horse (Richard Cilli) led ceaselessly through his dressage paces by a resolute trainer (Emily Amisano) to the point of collapse. From this establishing theme, Linder's piece traces multiple connections between the primitive animal consciousness and the higher, often fragile, states of human sensibility. This is best captured in the duet between Linder and Charmene Yap, who flow and grind upon one another in a sex-act both gentle and bestial.

The overall sense of Are We That We Are is a grungy engagement with the mind in crisis. Nick Schlieper's lighting douses sequences in colour washes, strikes at dancers with side-on strobes and, in the later stages of the piece, dominates the space with a flying lighting rig, all of which give a rock concert attitude to the stage. Jordan Askill's relaxed, streetwear costume design — tight jeans and loose t-shirts — equally conspires towards this end.

Bonachela's 6 Breaths switches the mood from grunge to elegance, in a collaboration with Italian composer Ezio Bosso's beautiful score for six cellos and a piano. The piece opens with a mesmeric animation by Tim Richardson, constructing two static lovers out of particles — ash or dust, perhaps. While Linder's piece is character driven, Bonachela's main thrust comes from his epic states, where all thirteen performers control the stage at once. Moving in unison, this chorus maintains the more traditional expectation for a dance piece, although there is a very touching duet between Richard Cilli and Alexander Whitley at the heart of this piece.

This classical, elegant theme was carried through 6 Breaths by Schlieper's lighting design, which constructed rows of light pillars both upstage and downstage to showcase the performers as their own Greek-like pantheon. Matching this were the costumes of Josh Goot, a Sydney-based designer, who created a modern, black-marbled shift for the dancers, equally evocative of the brief cuts of classical Greece.

Bonachela and Linder's 'New Creations' is a well-curated pairing, designed to provide an equal dose of provocation followed by a gentle return to comfortable territory. However, this at times takes a step too close towards being something-for-everyone. Overall, my impression was of a night with exciting flickers amidst a mood of unchallenged meditation — worth watching for those in need of relaxation.