Impermanence
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Impermanence 1 #2021SDC Roslyn Packer Theatre ab [intra] Walsh Bay, Sydney ★★★★ 7 – 11 September “Has to be seen to be believed” The Sydney Morning Herald Rafael Bonachela’s acclaimed ab [intra] returns for a very special encore season Book Now sydneydancecompany.com #2021SDC Are you reframing the future or is the future reframing you? Photo: Pedro Greig Welcome My sincere thanks go also to our major funders the Australian Government, through the Australia Council for the Arts, for their ongoing support. The Australian Government’s assistance programs over the course of 2020 made a material difference to Sydney Dance Company and we are deeply grateful for that help. The NSW Government has been a steadfast supporter of the Arts over this time. Not only is Sydney Dance Company grateful to be the recipient of ongoing partnership funding from The start of 2021 has seen both a joyous the NSW Government, we are also humbled return to the stage for Sydney Dance and deeply thankful to have received support Company and a celebrated return to our through their Restart and Renewal support home on the Wharf. For all of us, the package for the Arts. With that support we are impacts of 2020 and COVID-19 have left an able to employ the artists that have helped indelible mark. bring Impermanence to the stage and ensure that 2021 will see Sydney Dance Company It has been a great pleasure to watch the back on tour. dancers come back into the studio after months at home last year – to watch Raf Over several years we have been working working with them once more – putting shape closely with the NSW Government on the and structure to the emotion of what the last renewal of our home at Walsh Bay and we 12 months have wrought. I encourage you to thank them for their investment and congratulate allow yourself to inhabit Impermanence – its them on completing the first stage of this journey to the stage is a reflection of the once-in-a-lifetime project. We are so proud to journey we have all been on over the last year be in the heart of this incredible precinct. and its premiere marks a moment in time – impermanent but impactful. Our enormous gratitude goes to the many people who have contributed to our Take A Despite the closure of theatres and the Step Campaign to allow us to play our part cancellation of tours we were busy in 2020. in partnering with the NSW Government on We launched our Virtual Studio online this project. This campaign was supported classes program, delivered a digital schools’ by leadership gifts from the Neilson, Clifford, program nationally and produced short Mordant, Wales, Zampatti, Knights and Clegg dance film pieces for the Dance Locale and families. With their support, and that of all Cuatro series. those who invested in our vision, we have secured a home for Australian contemporary In 2021 we can build upon our Digital program dance, now and into the future. offerings due to the impactful RISE funding granted from the Department of Infrastructure, It has often been said that Sydney Dance Transport, Regional Development and Company feels like a family; we work together Communications, Office of the Arts. This collectively to bring these incredible works to funding will enable us to continue to diversify the stage. We share the joys and triumphs of revenue generation and improve our reach in success and we gather together and buckle regional, remote areas to permanently offer down to get through the challenges. My digital classes, schools’ programs on demand sincere thanks and appreciation go to all of nationally and internationally and live streams the Sydney Dance Company family, Board, of productions like you are seeing tonight. staff, dancers and audiences for what has been achieved over the last 12 months, as we The support of our donors and audiences look forward to the next year and the joy of was incredible and so very appreciated. This sharing Impermanence far and wide. came in many forms and every piece of it contributed to ensuring that Sydney Dance Anne Dunn Company is still here today. Executive Director 5 #2021SDC Welcome to Impermanence What a journey. Almost twelve months ago, as As it became apparent towards the end of we were in the theatre in technical rehearsal 2020 that we would, perhaps, be able to for the original iteration of Impermanence, the perform on stage again, I contacted Bryce impact of the COVID-19 pandemic became to explore extending both his score and my apparent, and a matter of days before opening choreography; to create a full-length work that night, the curtain came down before it had ever responded to the initial stimulus and to the been raised. shattering change to the fabric of our lives that had affected us all. After the challenges we have all faced, as a nation and as global citizens, it is an enormous Bryce has created incredible music. It is full privilege to finally be able to present this work. of emotional power; epic, driven, raw and I am truly delighted that you are here, in a poignant. The choreography takes its cues theatre, and watching Sydney Dance Company from these drivers inspired by the questions perform. the music raises for me – what do we hold dear? How do we make each and every Bryce Dessner and I were initially inspired to moment count? From devastation, what is the consider the ephemeral nature of life when we pathway through energy and urgency to peace spent time together in Paris in 2019, shortly and radiance? after the Notre Dame fire. We reflected on how easily things fall apart, even structures In 2015, I choreographed Frame of Mind using we imagine to be eternal, but also the fragility Bryce Dessner’s Ahyem; a driving, thrilling piece and impermanence of human life, the planet for string quartet, originally commissioned by and human relationships. This transience, so the Kronos Quartet. I really connected to that fleeting and vulnerable is the perfect subject piece of music and the artistic relationship with for live performance and in a post-COVID “new Bryce grew once he had an opportunity to see normal”, a work that we created to reflect on the dancers rehearsing to his score. He was in vulnerability has added poignancy. Sydney performing with his band, The National, in 2018 when he had the opportunity to visit The majority of the score was written towards the studio. From that meeting, our creative the end of 2019 when the bushfire crisis collaboration blossomed. overwhelmed Australia. Bryce was deeply affected by what he was seeing; the images It has been a real treat to conceive of this work of the bush on fire, headline news across the together – to explore the emotional drivers world, permeated his thinking and the work. through both dance and music and to arrive The personal connection he felt to Australia, at a place where the parts knit together so to Sydney, to the Company, the dancers, saw closely to make the whole. And ironically, to beauty germinate from desolation. be able to shape Impermanence in response to such unexpected, but life-changing global 6 sydneydancecompany.com events. For me, this encapsulates the incredible power of contemporary dance and music and how the response of the artist can truly resonate. Part of making that whole is of course the Australian String Quartet – working with them to not only realise the work for performance but to actually jointly commission the score has been a joy. I want to thank the wonderful musicians of the Australian String Quartet, Dale Barltrop, Francesca Hiew, Stephen King and Michael Dahlenburg, and guest musician Christopher Cartlidge. Their talent is breathtaking and their passion for this project inspiring. It has been a pleasure to work again with Damien Cooper whose lighting brings so much depth to this work, with designers David Fleischer and Aleisa Jelbart, whose deigns in set and costume have captured our world of Impermanence. My sincere thanks go to all those who have worked on Impermanence, especially the dancers, whose tenacity, passion and resilience, through months of Zoom rehearsals and dancing in lounge rooms across Sydney, have brought us to the stage today. Now more than ever, I realise that we must make the most of every moment, that every moment counts; we must hold tight what we hold dear. I hope that you enjoy every moment of Impermanence. Rafael Bonachela Artistic Director 7 #2021SDC Impermanence Choreographer Rafael Bonachela Impermanence, a work by Rafael Bonachela, featuring Bryce Dessner’s composition, Impermanence, Composer Bryce Dessner commissioned by Sydney Dance Company and Australian String Quartet (by arrangement with Chester Music Ltd, Wise Lighting Designer Damien Cooper Music Group) Stage Designer David Fleischer With generous support from: The Neilson Foundation Costume Designer Aleisa Jelbart Antoinette Albert, Don & Veronica Aldridge, The Berg Family Foundation, Paul Brady & Christine Yip, Jillian Broadbent AC & Olev Rahn, Jane & Andrew Clifford, Manuela Darling, Chum Darvall AM & Australian String Quartet Sonja Woodwell, Susie Dickson & Martin Dickson AM, Helen Pagnin & Angie Ellis, Dale Barltrop – Violin I Bahar Etminan & Herbert Appleroth, John Griffiths & Beth Jackson, Janet & Michael Francesca Hiew – Violin II Hayes, Alicia K Kemp, Joan Lyons, Jules Stephen King – Viola Maxwell, In memory of Nola McCullagh, Michael Dahlenburg – Cello Janet McLachlan, Didy McLaurin, Catriona Mordant AM & Simon Mordant AO, Paris Neilson & Todd Buncombe, Rebel Penfold-Russell OAM & Ian Low, Dominique Robinson, Bernard Ryan & Michael Rowe, Impermanence Jeanette Sandford-Morgan OAM, Penelope Composition for String Quartet and Seidler AM, Ezekiel Solomon AM, Allegra Spender & Mark Capps, Bianca Spender & Electronics by Bryce Dessner Sam McGuinness, The Ian Wallace Family Bequest, Kathy White and Carla Zampatti Before Foundation.