Photo by Ben Symons The Sydney Dance Company delved into personalities and relationships between its dancers themselves for the work its bringing to Auckland next month. Artistic Director Rafael Bonachela tells us about 2 One Another. Rafael Bonachela had been Artistic Director of Sydney Dance Company for three years when he decided he wanted to create a work that was inspired by the dancers themselves. “We spend a lot of time together, sometimes on tour for like eight weeks. Relationships build and interactions happen every day. You get close to everyone. I wanted to make a piece that really drew on the qualities of each dancer and their personalities,” the multi-award winning Spaniard tells GayNZ.com. He invited poet Samuel Webster to come into the dance studio and write about whatever he saw happening around him. Webster also interviewed the dancers. He would write and they’d take his words and respond with movement. “It was a wonderful process and also a very different process for me,” Bonachela says. “There was all this backwards and forwards between writing poetry and dancing and movement. And that also fed into the narrative of the dance. It all happened in that studio.” Photo by Peter Greig The soundtrack for 2 One Another ranges from Baroque to electronica. Bonachela says it’s a real journey, in terms of how music drives the emotion for the dancers – and the atmosphere. “It is a piece now that’s been with us for a couple of years and people respond to it in many, many different ways. And that is the wonderful thing for me. Because we all have a different world view. We all have a different background. We all come from different places. “The work in that sense is very universal. It’s been to South America, to North America, to Russia, to Europe, to Australia. Now it’s coming to New Zealand. And everywhere you go, people will take something unique and different. And that’s one of the beauties of dance.” While it was first created two years ago, the show keeps evolving. Rehearsals are underway for the New Zealand leg and Bonachela is making tweaks. “The great thing about the art form is that it’s alive. And every new dancer will bring something different. And every week and every month, I as a choreographer see something new in the music or in the dance or in the movement. And I want to keep them, also, really alive through the process so it’s not the same every night. I want it to be alive and real.” Photo by Peter Greig Bonachela believes in breaking down barriers between dance and the public, saying there are a lot of preconceptions about contemporary dance. “Obviously contemporary dance means a lot of things, because there are a lot of styles and a lot of different ways that choreographers and creators present their work to an audience. “For me and the Sydney Dance Company, we try to collaborate as much as possible with all sorts of different artists in all different fields, that hopefully will attract new audiences to dance …. I am always asking people to give it a go. A lot of people say they don’t like it that have not yet even been to a performance, so I find it hard to believe they will not connect with the human body in a way that is very human for everybody.” Everyone dances, he says, citing his nephews and nieces who danced before they spoke. “They hear music and they move. And then you get older and older and start getting all these hang ups and start thinking you don’t understand. But one of the beauties about dance is that everyone can understand, wherever you‘re from and whoever you are, you will always understand a body moving.” 2 One Another is in Auckland for 4 shows only from November 13 – 15 at ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre Auckland Live. You can enter to win tickets with GayNZ.com here Jacqui Stanford - 26th October 2014