Dance Playground

What's the difference between a trio of dips and a triptych? Delightful interplay, of course. No wonder Sydney Dance Company are calling their upcoming triple bill Interplay. Powered by a 16-strong ensemble, the company launch into their 45th anniversary season with short works by three world renowned choreographers. The evening begins with SDC's artistic director Rafael Bonachela debuting his new work 2 In D Minor. Following that, Italian dancer/choreographer Jacopo Godani's Raw Models, before coming back to Australia for SDC alumni and Chunky Move founder Gideon Obarzanek's long-awaited return to main stage dance, L'Chaim! (Hebrew for 'to life').

But what holds these pieces together? “The company itself – the 16 dancers,” Bonachela declares. “I wanted to give the audience an evening that had light and shade. This comes from having gone to see triple bills and seeing the same piece three times.” For Gideon Obarzanek the brief was clear. “I haven't approached this at all with any attempt to connect, which is kinda unusual.” Bonachela expands the point, “There has been a lot of thought about the order and the flavour of the work but we're not trying to influence one another. I obviously commissioned the work and I did suggest to Gideon that I would love him to use everyone, the entire ensemble.”

Since leaving Chunky Move in 2011, Obarzanek has been writing a play and dabbling in short film. His return to dance has clearly refreshed his vision. “Y'know, when I stopped I needed a break but also I really felt that, as a choreographer, I had really done pretty much everything I imagined I could do... But Raf gave me the challenge to come back to dance and work with this group of technically very strong dancers and it seemed so interesting that, y'know, it was kinda hard to resist.”

In his role as SDC director, Bonachela has a keener eye than most on the ensemble, who will dance all three pieces, finishing with Obarzanek. “I always love it when I see them acting or doing something that I've never seen before,” he enthuses. “It's almost like speaking three different languages with the one body … For an audience to see a dancer doing my work, when perhaps they are maybe familiar with my style, and then see them doing something that I don't do; this is what excites me about this kind of work.” As to whether Interplay is a kind of snapshot of where contemporary dance is right now, Bonachela is unsure, but he certainly has his own view: “It's constantly moving, so magical. What's going on is so wide-ranging. Y'know, there are people now making work that has no dancing in it. I think you can compare it to contemporary art, where you have people doing conceptual or video art. It's almost like a playground.”

WHAT: Interplay
WHEN & WHERE: 30 Apr – 10 May, Southbank Theatre, The Sumner