Sydney Dance Company: Untamed

You know, if I weren’t so lazy, I’d like to be a dancer. Picture this: flowing skirts, shiny shoes, lithe bodies vibrating with a primal strength… but instead I’m lying on my bed eating carrots (totally raw, not cut or peeled in any way) and dipping them straight into a big pot of hummus. And I’m totally smashing the double dip out of the park. Let me counteract it with people who are not doing this. People who dance from 9:30am until 10pm five or six days a week. Who dunk their legs into baths of ice to regulate their body temperatures; who have a dedication and an energy unmatched in most people; the dancers of the Sydney Dance Company.

'★★★★ It's a never-pausing torrent of swirling partners and flying bodies, arms and legs thrust skywards to the limit.' – @dailyreview.com.au #UntamedSDC now showing until 29 Oct. Only in Sydney • Image by @pedrogreig featuring Company dancers Cass Mortimer Eipper and Petros Treklis in @rafaelbonachela's world premiere of #ANIMA #sydneydancecompany

A post shared by Sydney Dance Company (@sydneydanceco) on Oct 19, 2016 at 10:20pm PDT

There is always something incredible happening at the SDC, however, I’m here to talk about the critically acclaimed showpiece Untamed. Running from the October 18 – 29 at the Roslyn Packer Theatre Walsh Bay – This show consists of two dramatic contemporary dance pieces. You are free to choose to attend one, or hit on in with a back-to-back ticket and see both.

The first of the pieces is Wildebeest by Australian choreographic prodigy Gabrielle Nankivell, returning for it’s second running after it’s sell-out premiere season in 2014. A darkly intimate performance that runs on an animalistic intensity, it is backed with an industriously stormy score by Luke Miles. Focusing in on the complexity of dancers as individuals within an ensemble; it is minimalistic in the sense that it has no set and plays with earthly tones and mist, giving the impression the dancers disappear intermittently, folding on the group as one.

The second piece is Anima (Latin for breath, spirit and soul) by Rafael Bonachela and will be running for its world premiere season. In a complete juxtaposition of Wildebeest, it is a celebration of a uniquely visual world, donning the stage in stark white and dressing the dancers in bright street clothe. It will be set up with real-time visual displays to show the audience different angles of the dance using 3D scanners. Bonachela has teamed up with Clemens Habicht (known for his film clips for Flume, Bloc Party, Tame Impala) and has set the piece to a fresh and enticing concerto of cello and strings by Bulgarian Grammy nominee Dobrinka Tabakova.

The show is often a sell-out, so jump online HERE and grab the tickets while you can. Each show has a duration of 30 minutes with a 20-minute intermission. Despite its lack of girl-eating-hummus-from-the-pot, I think it’s a raw and primal display of humanity and the instinctive basis that will bring out the Wildebeest in even the most closely guarded of creative aficionados.

The good people at the Sydney Dance Theatre have a special code QTLife readers, with $10 of A & B reserve tickets throughout the season, click HERE to book those tickets.