What are the instruments of the dance? Australian Ballet artistic director David Hallberg tells us before the curtain comes up on the company’s new triple bill; in an echo of Peter Brook’s philosophy in The Empty Space, only the music and the dancer’s body are required – although US choreographer William Forsythe once demonstrated (on the same stage) that you don’t even need music.
A triptych of contemporary choreographic works, Instruments of Dance is one of those nights at the theatre that Australian Ballet do so well. If the pieces aren’t all of a certain quality, they are individually engaging and beautifully demonstrate the company’s depth of talent. They also speak to each other in fascinating ways, juxtaposing artistic ideas while niggling at the edges of the cultural zeitgeist.
The evening opens with UK choreographer Wayne McGregor’s Obsidian Tear, a chilling exploration of male violence and homosocial tyranny that recalls everything from Cain and Abel to Lord of the Flies. It begins with an extended pas de deux (danced magnificently by Callum Linnane and Adam Elmes) that ranges from the playful to the dangerous, as brotherly affection sours into suspicion and one-upmanship.
Those notes of brutality come to sinister fruition when the stage fills with seven more male dancers led by a savage Adam Bull, who uses his considerable stage presence to forceful and intimidating effect. McGregor’s work here is miles away from the all-male gimmickry of Matthew Bourne; queerness is not flattened or fetishised but rather acts as a springboard for larger questions of patriarchy and power. His signature choreographic style – an aesthetically minimalist, laboratory-like exploration of movement – is fashioned into an arresting narrative arc, one that encompasses barbarism and ritual sacrifice, but also tenderness and redemption.
On a raked wooden stage designed by McGregor himself, and accompanied by a frenzied score from Finnish composer Esa-Pekka Salonen (including an astonishing violin solo by Sulki Yu), it is a searing, urgent work, tilting from the psychological into the mythic.
Alice Topp’s Annealing, a world premiere from one of this country’s preeminent choreographic talents, is equally taut and expressive – more abstract than McGregor’s piece but just as attuned to contemporary concerns. In the program notes, Topp talks about the strength that comes from malleability; the title of the work describes the process whereby metals are heated below melting point to make them stronger. Kat Chan’s glorious, slinky costumes in silver and gold lamé suggest molten precious metals, and the series of brilliant pas de deux reinforce the impression, with their melding of limbs and contorted lines.
Topp has a remarkable grasp of theatrical effects, most evident in the group work that makes up Annealing’s central section. That purity of aesthetic – invoking the retro-futurism of Apple TV’s adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation – would press the piece into the ethereal if it weren’t for Topp’s earthy sensualism. Gender is malleable here too, with some stunning non-binary flourishes from Elijah Trevitt. It may not be as direct as McGregor’s gestures in this space, but is all the more effective for its subtlety.
Sadly, the final piece in the triple bill, Justin Peck’s Everywhere We Go, is a letdown. Peck has an impressive pedigree (he is resident choreographer at New York City Ballet and recently worked on Spielberg’s West Side Story) but he has a gestural language that relies too heavily on ballet clichés, on endless iterations of classical poses.
The company dance the work with precision and energy – Benedicte Bemet and Brett Chynoweth in particular shine – but the piece mistakes velocity for dynamism, and fatally lacks tension. It’s often pretty, but also repetitive and ultimately strangely soulless, as if we were watching a series of rehearsal exercises rather than a fully articulated expression of choreographic intent.
This is usually the way with a triple bill, though; some works will speak more directly to an audience than others, and just as some can feel at the forefront of contemporary dance, others can seem like rearguard works, stuck in the past. Certainly, Instruments of Dance is a wonderfully mixed bag, a great showcase of Australian Ballet’s considerable and expanding abilities.
