Review: SYDNEY DANCE COMPANY: IMPERMANENCE at The Kennedy Center

A beautifully asynchronous and turbulent super-organism, Impermanence opened its weekend at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater on April 25th. 

The show, originally rehearsed in 2020 and placed on coals due to the pandemic, featured dancers from Sydney Dance Company (Timmy Blankenship, Anika Boet, Dean Elliott, Riley Fitzgerald, Tayla Gartner, Liam Green, Luke Hayward, Morgan Hurrell, Ngaere Jenkins, Sophie Jones, Naiara de Matos, Connor McMahon, Ryan Pearson, Piran Scott, Emily Seymour, Coco Wood, Chloe Young) and a live, on stage four string quartet (Dale Barltrop, Frances Hiew, Christopher Cartlidge, Michael Dahlenburg). The choreographer, Rafael Bonachela, and the composer, Bryce Dessner were inspired by a myriad of global tragedies: the 2019 bushfires in Australia, the Notre Dame fire. As stated clearly in the title, the piece focuses on the ephemeral, and the uneternal, and in a "post-pandemic" world, these ideas and themes are fresh and easily accessible to the public. 

The movement of bodies was primal, eloquent, and compulsive. Spans of sharp and jarring cacophonous movement were dotted with soft indulgences of deep intimacy, which were punished by the uncaring spirit of time. The dancers were deeply moving each other, in all meanings of the word, as well as the audience. 

What felt special about this piece in particular is its aforementioned embrace of the fleeting. One was not encouraged to sit and ponder a specific plot/ narrative regarding the show, but to sit and watch forms move on stage, to take it in instinctively and alchemically, to enjoy your senses and innate emotional reactions. 

And, mission successful. The experience felt very impermanent, it moved like a wild stampede, its unrelenting force wildly hypnotizing. It was, at times, an onslaught of the senses, the music felt like a driving force, a machine, or a heartbeat. The inclusion of the quartet on stage felt like an homage to the theme, saying "Yes, you get to see them play, but the show will end and they will leave." 

The atmosphere was further curated by light and space. Lighting Designer, Damien Cooper crafted a three-dimensional sensation that echoed these themes of Impermanence. There was a tremendous and ever-changing sense of scope and scale. At times the world was flat, almost seemingly devoid of shadow, and at other times one was watching shadows, sharp and intangible, appear and disappear on stage. There was an impressive and dynamic sense of foreground and background created at times, punctuating the show and making the sparse stage feel quite alive. This in tandem with the set, designed by Damien Fleischer, really upped the hypnotizing world of the show. The simple wall that grew, shrank, and changed colors/ textures, felt almost like a portal, a window into some other dimension. The dancers, a proxy for the audience may get close to it, experience its alien beauty for a time, and then, further punctuating the themes of the show, watch it shut before them. 

Truly an exhilarating and prepossessing experience, Impermanence exists strong, intricate, and moving, for now. Bonachela and Dessner's collaboration is truly a treat for audiences, and hopefully, their paths cross many times in the future. 

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