In folklore, a full moon can lead to madness. It’s a whimsical conceit for any creative to play with. And in Full Moon, the first ever collaboration between the Sydney Dance Company and a Taiwanese choreographer, dancers seem to walk straight out of Alice in Wonderland or a Salvador Dali painting.
Full Moon, in its world premiere, opens Sydney Dance Company’s new double bill, Orb. Wearing flowing, often absurdist costumes (one girl is almost drowning in a giant red outfit that looks like an exotic feathered bird), the performers twitch and twirl and turn to an invisible gravitational pull. A dancer in a striped dress pirouettes like a little girl. A man stands on his head, slowly cycling his nude legs upside down, a moving, off-kilter statue.
Cheng Tsung-lung, artistic director of Taiwan’s acclaimed theatre troupe Cloud Gate 2, grew up helping in his parents’ slipper factory. Here, he keeps the feet of his charges resolutely off the ground. Dancers are constantly moving to a score composed for the piece by Taiwanese experimental electronic musician Lim Giong.
Combined with a juxtaposition of soft and hard lighting, designed by Damien Cooper and influenced by artists James Turrell and Olafur Eliasson, Full Moon is an intriguing work. But it never quite reaches the celestial heights for which it aims. While it tries hard to transport you to another world, it feels a little distant, a little too academic.
Ocho, the second piece in the double bill, fares better. Like Full Moon, it is a new work featuring a new score, this time by Sydney Dance Company artistic director Rafael Bonachela and composer Nick Wales, his long-term collaborator. Like Full Moon, it is overly long and would have benefited from tighter editing. But Ocho, which means “eight” in Spanish and references the eight dancers on stage, has more narrative drive and urgency.
Taut and sparse, Ocho is set in an atmosphere of deadening urbanity. In a glass box on stage, the dancers are scrutinised by both the audience and each other. When they break outside, a slight woman in a pair of tiny black sports shorts and a yellow bra, is left padding the glass with her hands and (literally) bouncing off the walls. There’s something deeply uncomfortable about watching and being watched, with its implications of state surveillance.
Then the tone shifts. Pulsating electronica, rooted in brassy trumpet, gives way to vocals by singer Rrawun Maymurur from north-east Arnhem Land. The song tells the story of the Spirit Lady, Nyapillilingu, who in Yolngu culture, guards the passage between Earth and the Milky Way. It’s a more uplifting end to an uneven night, one heralded by a change in light on stage: from the glare of brittle street lamps to honeyed sunshine. A new dawn, indeed.
