Cut The Sky

Cut The Sky is an immense achievement, a breathtaking conglomeration of dance, poetry, music and protest in response to the undeniable climate crisis we are currently facing. Brought to the stage by a large team of creatives and production staff — including dancers, musicians, media artists, cinematographers and poets — and somehow contained and cultivated into an impressively pointed and affecting form by director Rachael Swain, this is a triumph of collaborative, multi-disciplinary theatre-making.

With so many voices coming together on stage, Cut The Sky takes the form of five distinct sections of song and dance. Though vastly different in subject and form, the performers, designers and director have bound each section together with a powerful common thread: a sense of urgency as it becomes clear that the issue at the heart of each song is the same. 

In this way Cut The Sky reflects the Australia that we find ourselves in now — divided by different experiences of greed and loss and country, but unified as we all face a future of climate disaster. Though the work itself is devastating, showing a world and bodies driven to the edge by our 'inability to self-correct', it is also inescapably uplifting simply because it is so beautiful.

The set design is sparse, but the cavernous space is filled with stunning images of landscapes in turmoil, with a swelling soundtrack, including powerhouse live singing and haunting violin. The performances are simply exquisite, embodying a collision of ancient storytelling, contemporary dance and poetry in speech and movement. Choreographed by Dalisa Pigram and Serge Aime Coulibaly, the movement, combined with the set and costume design, juxtaposes the natural imagery and synthetic materials that make up our modern world, as bodies jar, shudder and then collapse into swift, smooth bliss. 

Surely if a group of artists from different backgrounds and disciplines can come together to put such a stunning piece of work on stage, we can all come together to make sure our planet survives into the next century.