Melbourne Reviews

Sometime in distant memory, choreographer Rafael Bonachela described himself as a movement junkie. His works are so chock-full of bodies continually doing crazy, sinewy and highly articulate things, there is something indeed compulsive about it. 

He’s already been artistic director of Sydney Dance Company for over a decade, and he’s made so many works at this point, the movement junkie term receded into the past. But this recent work, momenta, recalls it with a vengeance. 

For 70 minutes, which flies by, the movement never really stops; it sometimes subsides and sometimes accumulates, but it’s always going, going, going. 

Like a movement tap. 

Just when it seems like there couldn’t be more invention, or another long limb flying out and recoiling back, something else surprising happens. 

Even if attention waxes and wanes, whenever you snap back in – another complex scenario is under way, making one wonder how so much content can come from one place. 

momenta is a full cast (15 people), although punchy duets in all gender combinations have their place and a few solos are sprinkled throughout. 

The dancers in barely-there nude shades of various leotard and legging ensembles, have a democracy of statures and sexes. They are all exceptionally beautiful, but are costumed similarly. Every muscle, limb and bone seem to be revealed, and the virtuosity of the bodies is fully on show at all times.

Nick Wales’s electronic music/soundscape (featuring Peteris Vasks) is often percussive, like heart beats pulsing underneath the moving flesh. It doesn’t overwhelm, but it drives the ebb and flow of activity and is crucial to the overall effect. 

As momenta is a purely abstract work, every viewer will experience the collection of artistic elements differently. There will be moments of rapt engagement and probably periods of checking out (complete focus is nearly impossible as it’s just so much choreographic material).

Frequent collaborator with Bonachela, lighting designer Damien Cooper has created a curvaceous lighting rig that tilts and turns, with individual circular lights placed within a larger round frame. Spaceship, an oversized tanning lamp, a Petrie dish … it evokes a lot of different things. 

The dancers gravitate to it at certain points, writhe under it, surround it, ignore it, become grotesque specimens inside it. This lighting structure is the main prop and draws a lot of focus. 

Set design (Elizabeth Gadsby) seems deceptively simple, as the stage is mostly open and the moods are created with fog, confetti and brooding lighting (all familiar elements, here used in an especially effective combination) 

In the last decade, under Bonachela, Sydney Dance Company has always had a strong ensemble of young-ish dancers (the physical demands of momenta, combined with touring of multiple SDC works simultaneously, is a youthful game). The precision of all the dancers is extraordinary.

Alongside that calibre, the combination of theatrical elements really hits the mark and makes momenta one of the best SDC programs seen in Melbourne in recent times. 

It sticks to a vision and does what Bonachela does best – exploit movement to its most succulent, sensual potential. It’s nearly impossible not to get sucked into its vortex.