Sydney Dance Company is bringing its multi-dimensional dance production to His Majesty’s Theatre on the 18th of June. The show is an exploration of human interaction using movement, music, language and light commandeered by artistic director Rafael Bonachela. The show features a pulsating, pixilated backdrop and an electronic meets baroque soundtrack from composer from Nick Wales. There are also fragments of poetry from Samuel Webster. I chatted to Cass Mortimer Eipper, one a member of ‘2 One Another’s ensemble of experienced dancers.
The show has been touring internationally, visiting such destinations as South America, North America and Moscow. Eipper says the company have been thrilled with their reception worldwide. “ I think South America was really amazing. Just because the audience response was so remarkably different in a way. I think the social norms in many ways are quite different but the way an audience responds is so instantaneous and so giving. We got standing ovations in every single city that we went to in South America.” Eipper realized how stark those cultural differences were after performing in Moscow. “The audience response was very very different I think as at the end they all seemed to clap in unison, which was a pretty different thing to what we’re used to, to be a cultural norm that everybody kind of unites into a synchronized clap.”
One of the things that makes ‘2 One Another’ stand out as a production is its incorporation of poetry. Eipper says the linguistic elements of the show were developed in a collaborative process between poet and dancers. “Basically Sam watched the dancers and then having watched them for a while, it inspired a certain amount of poetry and I think he came up with a few verses in relation to what he was seeing and then the dancers in turn responded to the poetry. So then the dancers read that out, got given the poetry and they then formed more movement and more ideas came out of what was written.”
Eipper assures that the show is an immersive experience for both the performers and the audience. “I think the best way to describe it would just be that there’s an incredible energy to the work which the entire cast gets absorbed into each night and I think the audience does as well.”
‘2 One Another’ is at His Majesty’s Theatre from the 18th to the 21st of June, and the Albany Entertainment Centre on the 28th of June.
Book tickets at ticketek.com.au
Sophie Joske
