Sydney Festival 08 - Alas Three Works
Compania Nacional de Danza - Alas Three Works, Lyric Theatre, January 6-13
After the slightly damp but nevertheless extremely popular new style start to this year’s event (around 200,000 strolling the streets and free venues) the 2008 festival got away to an impressive, moving and altogether brilliant start with the opening night of Spanish choreographer Nacho Duato’s triple bill: Por Vos Muero, Gnawa and White Darkness.
The first piece, danced to 15th and 16th century Spanish music and the poetry of Garcilas de la Vega, was first performed in 1996 and is a rolling, swirling, dazzle of mainly ensemble dancing. As an introduction to the company and Duato’s dance language it’s the ideal opener to a night that had the capacity audience cheering by evening’s end.
The second part of the bill, Gnawa, is immediately exciting and dynamic. It is the most recent work in the collection (2005-7) and conjures thoughts of Spain’s Moorish past as well as the present reality of the Mediterranean: both western and Arabic. The music is from Morocco and the shapes and abstract design achieved by the choreography of human bodies evokes the filigree and patterns of the Magreb - or the Alhambra. It’s a breathtaking work.
The night concludes with the sombre beauty of White Darkness, a suggestion of images and ideas by Duato as a response to the death of his sister from a heroin overdose. Karl Jenkins’ Adiemus Variations, string quartet no 2 provides the aural foundation for a work (2001) that is visually stark and expresses, without sentiment or judgement, the inner journey of a human being in thrall to the deadly white powder.
Costumes, lighting and setting are minimal and designed to enhance and reveal the sculptural beauty and truth of the dancers’ bodies. The ultimate result is also to reveal the choreographer’s work in all its fluidity, precision, detail and originality: there is no hiding place for him or his company of dancers who come from all part of the world (including one Australian) yet who speak one fluent and universal language: dance.
