Elliptical Logic

by Janet Anderson

Dance Review

For a hypnotizing 80 uninterrupted minutes, Sydney Dance Company performed like people possessed -- whether in the grasp of angels or demons wasn't clear. They hurled themselves through Ellipse, the galvanizing Australian troupe's local Annenberg premiere offering. An ellipse is a geometric line, a partial circle, suggesting rather than completing what it implies, and it is the perfect name for this stupendous barrage of movement that seemed perfectly recognizable while simultaneously suggesting something dropped down from Mars.

Ellipse, a beautiful, weird piece of choreography by company artistic director Graeme Murphy, actually creates a sense of ritual although there's no evidence this is intended. Matthew Hindson's abstract music is layered, atonal and heavily percussive at points, and yet it too conjures both melody and mood. Akira Isogawa's gorgeous costumes are mere wisps of fabric that cling to or flutter off the dancers' bodies. When the dancers first appeared, wrapped in iridescent layers that might be seaweed or cobwebs, they rose up in the spotlight and seemed to be emerging from the primeval murk. Unfortunately we did not see Gerard Manion's sculptural set, a metal circle that would have partially enclosed the dancer's stage space, since U.S. Homeland Security detained it.

Eclectic, in fact electric, the splendid troupe of 18 dancers effortlessly shifted between ballet, gymnastics, martial arts, contemporary modern dance -- and just plain silliness. At any moment totally abstract dance suddenly became utterly concrete, transforming the dancers into the shape of a train chugging across the stage, and then, voilà, back to abstraction. We had no idea what any of this meant, although the performers were not mere anonymous shapes moving around the stage; they registered emotion, interacted with each other and made the audience laugh.

One of the disparities that Murphy plays with endlessly, and to tremendous effect, is size. The Sydney men are huge, some of the biggest I've ever seen dance -- not just tall, but broad-chested and thick-thighed. These guys aren't likely to be taunted as being sissy dancers. Meanwhile the women are tiny, so petite that these giants effortlessly pick them up by legs and arms and swing them here and hurl them there as the ladies smile and flirt. The element of danger was held in control by razor-sharp technique, and mutual trust kept the audience focused and breathless. We haven't seen the rest of their repertory, and perhaps Sydney occasionally performs a quiet little pas de deux, but Ellipse left the gasping audience saying "stupendous!"

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