Mod Dance Company
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THE AUSTRALIAN, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2010 14 ARTS www.theaustralian.com.au NC Edited by Bridget Cormack Full reviews of new films will appear in OUT & ABOUT The Weekend Australian on Saturday. NSW, ACT Send event information to In the dance steps of the master listings@theaustralian.com.au Reimers shows a cellist streak Graeme Murphy’s A CELLIST who works are in befriended Robert familiar hands Schumann in the composer’s final years is an VALERIE LAWSON interesting footnote to the TEAGAN Lowe says when she Adelaide lost her job at the Sydney Dance Symphony Company two years ago, it felt as if Orchestra’s ‘‘my whole world was picked up Schumann Festival and put upside down’’. She was one starting tomorrow. of seven SDC dancers not contrac- Christian Reimers, ted by incoming artistic director pictured, was close Rafael Bonachela. Nor was re- to Schumann’s hearsal director Brett Morgan. circle in the 1850s Out of the ashes has sprung a and gave the Cello dance phoenix, the Mod Dance Concerto a read- Company, soon to embark on a through, in draft national tour with a work called form, with Suite Synergy: an amalgam of Schumann at the Synergy and Free Radicals, both piano. Many years choreographed by former SDC after Schumann’s mental decline and death in 1856, Reimers settled artistic director Graeme Murphy, briefly in Adelaide and became involved in the city’s musical life: he who is the patron of the new com- played with the Adelaide String Quartet Club and conducted a pany. Michael Askill and three German choir. Former ASO bassoonist Paul Blackman has researched other percussionists will accom- the Reimers-Adelaide connection, with the question of whether a lost pany the piece. set of Romances for Cello, given to Reimers by Schumann, could Mod Dance, with Morgan and surface in South Australia. Timo-Veikko Valve plays the Cello Lowe as artistic directors, has of- Concerto with the ASO tomorrow; other concerts in the ASO’s fered contracts to 18 dancers, five Schumann Festival are on October 7 and 9. of whom worked with Murphy at MATTHEW WESTWOOD the SDC. Murphy will rehearse Suite Synergy, as will Bradley Chat- field, another former dancer with SDC who is now working at Dance NEW RELEASES and Eddie have a toxic North in Queensland. relationship. Unable to walk The tour will begin at I’m Still Here(MA15+) away, they shack up in a seedy Melbourne’s State Theatre in Casey Affleck’s fly-on-the-wall motel where their conflicting March and move to the Lyric documentary about the fall from feelings culminate in a frenzy of Theatre at Sydney’s Star City in LYNDON MECHIELSEN grace of his brother-in-law, violence. Produced by Michael April. It is understood the com- After being passed over by Rafael Bonachela at Sydney Dance Company, Teagan Lowe has set up her own troupe with another SDC alumnus, Brett Morgan actor Joaquin Phoenix, is Sieders, this is the first pany has raised $1.5 million from revealed to be a fake. But production Imara Savage has private investors to support the has previously collaborated on the SDC program opening on Oc- such as SDC, jobs are scarce. SDC tinuing for seasons in the Gold piece. Investors include the watching a talented man destroy directed for B Sharp. tour’s first six months or more. 360˚, We Unfold and 6 Breaths. tober 12. Bonachela’s only main- employs 14 dancers, compared Coast, Darwin, and Adelaide. directors of Mod Dance himself and his career is hardly Belvoir St Downstairs Theatre. One of the company’s aims is to When he won the SDC job, stage commission so far is this with 17 two years ago. Two The artists, including ex-SDC Company, Nadasha Zhang, Linda an edifying experience, whether 25 Belvoir St, Surry Hills. Tomorrow, keep Murphy’s body of work alive. Bonachela said: ‘‘I believe that year’s Are We that We Are, from dancers, Fiona Jopp and Cameron dancers Emee Dillon, Chylie Coo- Alescio and Michelle Grace real or not. This is one of the 8.15pm. Tickets: $32. Bookings: (02) 9699 When Murphy left SDC after 31 Sydney Dance should be a reper- the Europe-based Adam Linder. McMillan, maintain London con- per, Veronica Mahon and Kalman Hunder, who are also directors of odder manifestations of the cult 3444. Until October 24. years, the then administrator of tory company that gives work to Next year the company will nections as part of the Bonachela Warhaft, will be offered six-month Mod Management Agency, a of celebrity. the company, Noel Staunton, said Australian choreographers and tour Britain, and while it will wave Dance Company, and British contracts. Melbourne-based marketing, ad- DAVID STRATTON 90 per cent of its repertoire was from all places.’’ the flag for Australian dance once dancer Alexander Whitley has re- But Morgan has hopes for fur- vertisingandpublicrelationscom- TALKS choreographed by Murphy. So far there has been little Aus- again, much of the emphasis is turned home. Although Whitley’s ther seasons of existing works, pany that doubles as a talent Murphy had ‘‘made his work tralian work and none by Murphy, away from home. Why does this position has been filled, another such as Murphy’s Tivoli and Ste- agency for actors and dancers. Sagan (M) Festival of Dangerous Ideas available’’, said Staunton, ‘‘but we which is understandable, given matter? Because contemporary SDC dancer, Adam Blanch, is phen Petronio’s Underland, along Alescio, who has worked in the This film from director Diane There’s nothing like a good [the company] need airlock’’, that most artistic directors of con- dance is so fragile in Australia, leaving to take a position at Aus- with new commissions. finance industry and came up with Kurys covers the last 50 years of religious debate to ignite a bit of whichmeantdistancingitselffrom temporary dance companies — with freelance Australian chor- tralian Dance Theatre, which ‘‘I always thought there was the idea of the new dance com- the life of French writer heat, and so it is at this year’s the past with new works by three such as Garry Stewart, Leigh War- eographers and dancers often means there are up to three vacan- room for a Graeme-style com- pany, says she does not want to Francoise Sagan, from the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. The guest choreographers. ren and Gideon Obarzanek — are forced to find work overseas. cies at SDC, all for men. A spokes- pany,’’ he says. ‘‘I’m trying to get discuss the commercial arrange- publication of her best-selling festival, which starts tomorrow at They included Bonachela, who choreographers who program This fragility is underscored by woman says ‘‘we always keep a together a commercial product.’’ ments of the company. novel Bonjour Tristesse,toher the Sydney Opera House, begins took up the artistic directorship on their own work. a recent report by Carin Mistry, couple of fluid spaces’’. With Suite Synergy, he says he The dancers can only hope lonely death in 2004. As Sagan, with a conversation between a three-year contract early last SDC’s repertoire has now taken director of the Australia Council’s Meanwhile, it’s a case of don’t wants the audience to ‘‘feel that there is a safety net that will give Sylvie Testud captures the human rights advocate Geoffrey year. The Spanish-born choreo- on a European sensibility, but that dance board, who wrote in August give up your day job for many of they’ve been entertained. It has a them work beyond their six- desperation of a life littered with Robertson and Alan Dershowitz, grapher, who controls his own is not entirely due to Bonachela. that small dance companies have those involved in the Mod Dance commercial dance flavour.’’ month contracts. failed marriages, multiple lovers a high-profile American criminal small contemporary dance com- Staunton had commissioned new ‘‘very lean staffing structures’’, troupe. Morgan, who will remain Of course, it will all depend on For Lowe, the new venture is an and a punishing addiction to lawyer and commentator, on pany in London, has made three works by Finland’s Kenneth they need more management in his job as artistic director of the money. The initial Suite Synergy opportunity to ‘‘keep Graeme’s drugs and alcohol. A sad, whether the Pope should be held works for SDC. Next year, the last Kvarnstrom and Emmanuel Gat, support and, as every dancer National College of Dance in tour is fully funded and there are work alive’’, and to keep pro- cautionary tale, told with accountable for sexual abuse in of his three contracted years, he an Israeli choreographer who now knows, ‘‘maintaining a career as an Newcastle, says the company’s hopes box office revenue will give fessional dancers employed in compassion and humour. the Catholic Church. Other will choreograph a fourth in col- runs his own company in France. independent dance artist is still firm dates for next year include investors a sufficient return to al- Australia. ‘‘We’ve got way too EVAN WILLIAMS guests at the festival include laboration with his favourite com- Gat’s new piece, Satisfying Musical challenging’’. only Melbourne, Sydney and low future tours. Mod Dance has a many dancers looking for work writer-filmmaker Tariq Ali on poser, Italian Ezio Bosso. The pair Moments, is the main element of Even at established companies Perth, while negotiations are con- five-year exclusive licence to the who end up going overseas.’’ terrorism and New York Dinner for Schmucks (M) columnist Lenore Skenazy on A grimly unfunny remake of whether freedom is too SYD FRI 0110 Francis Veber’s popular Le diner dangerous for children.