An unmissable world-class showcase: These dancers strut the stage like demi-gods

momenta
May 28
Roslyn Packer Theatre
Until June 8
Reviewed by KATIE LAWRENCE
★★★★★

After starting 2024 with an overseas tour, Sydney Dance Company bursts back onto the Australian stage with momenta, Artistic Director Rafael Bonachela’s first full-length work since 2021. Described as “a journey into the poetry and physicality of human bonds,” it’s a world-class showcase of the stunning physicality and artistry of the company.

momenta is a world-class showcase of the stunning physicality.Credit: Pedro Greig

momenta is an electric and arresting celebration of light and life that feels almost sacred in its reverence for the power of the body to connect and communicate. Highlights include Naiara de Matos and Piran Scott, who perform a duet of such deep trust, exquisite intensity, and breathtaking intimacy that I wonder if it should be mandatory viewing in the Relationships Australia curriculum (Spoiler: in real life, de Matos and Scott are newlyweds, and it’s evident on stage; there’s no concocting that level of authenticity).

Emily Seymour is also sublime; she commands the space with a leonine majesty. Her duet with Luke Hayward is intricate, athletic and magnetic, illustrating the kind of boundary-pushing partner work that’s the trademark of the company.

The atmosphere of momenta ranges from angelic to austere, with Damien Cooper’s lighting and Nick Wales’ score playing no small part in that journey. For 75 minutes, Cooper’s lighting leaps from psychiatric ward stark to golden-hour glow, and everything in between (including a slow motion post-apocalyptic scene held in a red-light district).

The centrepiece of the momenta stage is an industrial circle of 19 lights that tilt, swoop, ascend and descend like a mothership (dancers can always seem a bit “other worldly”, with their long limbs and superhuman range of movement, and momenta leans into the extraterrestrial vibe). Wales’ original score is diverse and engaging, accelerating from gorgeous string solos, through chimes, voice and orchestral elements, to raw percussive beats.

At its heart, momenta is a work about the grace and power of human vulnerability. It’s a beautiful, luminous, cadent spectacle of artistry and athleticism, where world-class dancers blaze majestically across the stage like demi-gods.

Momenta’s world premier is performing at Sydney Roslyn Packer Theatre (28 May – 8 June) before embarking on a national tour. It’s not to be missed.

Regular dance reviewer Chantal Nguyen is overseas

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RIDE THE CYCLONE
Hayes Theatre, May 28
Until June 22
Reviewed by JOHN SHAND
★★★★½

Imagine watching a musical through a kaleidoscope, while the music splinters between genres. Imagine one that touches upon high art and popular culture like a butterfly flitting between flowers. (What other musical references both ABBA and Jean Genet?) Above all, imagine a musical that does black humour like Beckett.

Yes, really.

First aired 2008, Ride the Cyclone, is yet another show to trash musical theatre’s putative rule book, as West Side Story did in 1957, Sunday in the Park with George did in 1984 and Hedwig and the Angry Inch did in 1998, among others.

Justin Gray and the Cast of Ride The Cyclone.Credit: Prudence Upton

Penned by Jacob Richmond and Brooke Maxwell (aided by Alan Schmuckler) and here having its Australian premiere, its dark premise sets the tone: six 17-year-old school choir members from Canada’s loser town of Uranium are killed when a roller-coaster – the “Cyclone” – has a catastrophic failure. This catapults them into limbo, where Karnak, an amusing, disembodied, automaton head, peering into a crystal ball (ideally voiced by Pamela Rabe), proclaims that each will tell a story, after which a unanimous vote of support will win one teen restoration to… life! So, no pressure.

In Richard Carroll’s dazzling production, Benjamin Brockman’s set seems to elongate the Hayes stage, as though we are seeing it through the wrong end of binoculars, with twisted bits of roller-coaster track climbing the walls. Hidden behind this is a quintet, led by Victoria Falconer, which must be across more idioms than some musicians play in their entire careers.

The show inherently combines teen-scream mayhem with existentialism, and then layers in sophisticated wit and theatricality, while giving each member of the young cast a purpose for delivering a show-stopper. All six deliver.

The pert, bright, appallingly self-satisfied Ocean O’Connell Rosenberg (an admirable Karis Oka) goes first, but forgets she must win the others’ hearts and minds, rather than just impressing Karnak and herself. Noel Gruber (Bailey Dunnage), the town’s lone gay, by contrast, dares bare his soul, and perform as his secret alter ego, Monique Gibeau, a prostitute in post-war France who dies of typhoid. Fabulously choreographed by Shannon Burns, with appropriately noirish lighting (Ryan McDonald) and costumes (Esther Zhong), his routine is so captivating that even Ocean twigs she just blew the sympathy vote.

Lincoln Elliott shines as Mischa Bachinski, an adopted Ukrainian who’s the town’s self-proclaimed bad egg. He raps to expunge his rage, and then rushes us from baseball caps to peasant dresses, and a flashback to his Ukrainian village where his one true love lives. It gets even nuttier when the shy, withdrawn Ricky Potts (an equally good Justin Gray) reveals his inner self to be a comic book hero with a chorus of cats singing Space Age Bachelor Song.

But these four are upstaged by Ava Madon’s Jane Doe. Jane was beheaded in the accident and left unidentified. Made otherworldly by Ashleigh Grace’s makeup, Madon unleashes her soprano on The Ballad of Jane Doe, amid a dreamlike routine with umbrellas that look like they’ve been eaten by giant moths.

Finally comes Constance (Mel O’Brien), supposedly Ocean’s best friend, but more the butt of her formidable cruelty, who sings of the accident; of how it felt to cherish life just for a moment as she flew through the air to oblivion.

A song or two drop away in quality, as perhaps does the ending, and some choreography can be tightened, but Cyclone excels with its mad mix of ingredients – and positive moral, no less: one that’s neither pontificating nor saccharine.

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VIVID LIVE
Air play Moon Safari
Opera House Concert Hall, May 25
Reviewed by SHAMIM RAZAVI
★★★★

It’s all so French. A seven-minute languid build-up to a chromatic, orgasmic crescendo that keeps coming: set-and-album-opener La Femme d’Argent is a spell cast from another culture.

It set the tone for what followed: Moon Safari, an album that redefined the possibilities of comedown music forever more.

Twenty-five years on, Vivid gives Air – Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel – the space to recreate their debut album live, track by track, note by implausible note. What sounds on the record like an electro-sample fest is revealed to be an organic musical masterpiece, with guitar and old-school drums every bit as important as the Korg synth that ties it all together.

What sounds on the record like an electro-sample fest is revealed to be an organic musical masterpiece.Credit: Mikki Gomez

It is quite the trick to captivate with an electro chillout album. The very Vivid light show helps with the album’s otherworldly theme, underscored by a visual journey through the cosmos. Billowing smoke redolent of the Parisian bars of your dreams completes the effect.

In many ways the album sounds better live. Sang-froid gives way to sincere immediacy and there is a new lushness to the sound, especially on guitar-driven numbers All I Need and Talisman. But the live format has its downsides: the synth is a poor replacement for the tuba on Ce Matin La, and Godin’s jagged vocoder is an even poorer substitute for Beth Hirsch’s sensual vocal on You Make It Easy.

There is another flaw, which was always in the original album: a second half that isn’t equal to the first. This flaw echoes in the structure of the show itself: the album is followed by a seemingly random collection of other decent cuts from later Air albums.

It was always going to be hard to continue the cohesion of an album set with anything else, but what follows is an uneven jumble with no unifying thread. For every epic Don’t Be Light there is an inexplicable Electronic Performers waiting in the wings.

You can’t blame them – most bands never reach the genius of Air’s debut LP, and it is a treat to see it recreated whole. But on this night it is the oldest Air that is most fresh.

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VIVID LIVE
Elefant Traks 25th Anniversary – The Finale
Opera House Joan Sutherland Theatre, May 26
Reviewed by ANGUS THOMSON
★★★★

Nobody could ever accuse the Herd of sitting on the fence.

As MCs Urthboy (Tim Levinson) and Unkle Ho (Kaho Cheung) explain at the beginning of their set, bandmate Kenny Sabir created the label Elefant Traks in 1998 “to bring different voices and faces into Australian music”.

“And I think we did it,” says Levinson. After a three-hour show celebrating the label’s 25th and final birthday, it’s hard to disagree.

The night began with Ozi Batla (Shannon Kennedy), dressed in thongs, boardies and a fishing polo, rapping about fish and chips on Scallops. If that was a nod to what Australian hip-hop used to sound (and look) like, then the rest of the gig showed just how far it has come.

Urthboy (Tim Levinson) celebrates 25 years of Elefant Traks.Credit: Mikki Gomez

The label has never shied away from its activist roots, whether calling out racism on the Herd’s 77% or lending its voice to songs welcoming refugees and campaigning to change the date of Australia Day.

But no words were necessary when, draped in keffiyeh scarves and Palestinian flags, they joined Egyptian-Australian singer Nardean on stage as she quietened the crowd with a haunting Arabic ballad.

It was a sombre reflection on an otherwise jubilant night that bounced through a procession of artists who paid tribute to the label’s readiness to give them a platform, from Sikh rapper L-Fresh the Lion to trans Zimbabwean-Australian R&B artist Anesu (the label’s last signing).

Barring an awkward scramble as the lights came on before anyone had the chance to mention there’d be a short intermission, there were few lulls in the show. There wasn’t enough time. “We’ve got a lot to get through,” says Hermitude’s Luke Dubber, before launching into a megamix of hits including Speak of the Devil and The Buzz, songs that took the electronic duo from the Blue Mountains to the global festival circuit, and gave Elefant Traks the rare commercial success that allowed the label to continue supporting lesser-known acts.

A devoted crowd was mostly on its feet when the Herd came back for one final crack.

“Everything must change,” they reminded us as they closed out the show with The King Is Dead. That may be true, but Elefant Traks will be missed.

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VIVID LIVE
Arca
Opera House Concert Hall, May 24
Reviewed by MICHAEL RUFFLES
★★★½

Arca is never less than two things at once. Human and electronic. Smooth and spiky. Aggressive and vulnerable. Chaotic and choreographed. Exhilarating and exasperating.

The Venezuela-born, Barcelona-based avant-garde pop singer-songwriter and producer to the stars was forever exploring balance and boundaries in her Australian debut performance at Vivid Live.

Arca’s outfit might have been made from a Mad Max wreckage.Credit: Wolter Peeters

Arca emerged from smoke and strobe effects wearing a cumbersome dress that might have been made from a Mad Max wreckage, accompanied by a cacophonous soundtrack. And she started with ballads.

The soulful and tender Anoche rocked a crowd that had been on their feet back in their seats, while Reverie was more melancholy still.

Her awkwardness in the twisted metal was clear and deliberate: a barbed comment on the contortions expected of non-binary and transgender people; an environmental message; a ploy to keep the audience off balance; something else lost on me.

“One moment, let me peel out of this exoskeleton,” Arca says, and with assistance is freed in body and, it seems, spirit.

Freed from her ‘exoskeleton’ Arca’s performance became sexier and more upbeat.Credit: Jordan Munns

The mood turns brighter, sexier and more upbeat with material from the 2020-21 Kick cycle of albums, and the liberated Arca throws flowers to fans, crawls around the stage, sits at the piano and unsuccessfully tangles with the swing: “No, I can totally do this, I can make my spine into a Mobius strip.” The songs often end abruptly and feel disconnected as change is the only constant for the artist also known as Alejandra Ghersi.

With the more accessible electro-pop banger Prada, the set switched from interesting to entertaining. Bruja was fierce, Incenio gloriously mad, and Riquiqui defiant. Arca’s interactions with the crowd were fun, and she was unafraid to get political, suggest reading material for homework or pass the microphone around and let chaos reign.

Tiro, having been abandoned earlier when Arca lost her earphones, served as a strong send-off.

The biggest downside is that Arca’s songs, while strong on ideas and sounds, often feel too short. This is a lesser crime than overstaying their welcome. Of all the things Arca was all at once, she was never boring.

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THEATRE
Death of a Salesman
Theatre Royal, May 22. Until June 23
Reviewed by JOYCE MORGAN
★★★★½

When Arthur Miller’s best-known play premiered in 1949, an outraged audience member accused the playwright of detonating a time bomb under American capitalism. Miller hoped he had.

Family dynamic: Ben O’Toole (Happy) and Josh Helman (Biff) with Anthony LaPaglia (Willy).Credit: Brett Boardman

Blind faith in the American Dream of a bright, shiny future was widespread when Miller laid before his audience what he called the “corpse of a believer”.

The hollowness behind the optimism is more evident 75 years on, amid a widening gap between rich and poor, a housing crisis and a young generation who cannot afford what their parents took for granted, and not only in America.

This much-anticipated production seamlessly interweaves social critique and family drama as the ageing travelling salesman Willy Loman unravels before us.

In his Sydney stage debut, Anthony LaPaglia mines the layers of this contradictory, weary, bewildered everyman to deliver a flesh and blood Loman of nuance and pain. It’s an extraordinary performance of an ordinary man.

LaPaglia’s raspy voice and shuffling gait embody Loman’s exhaustion from the moment he first appears, having returned home prematurely from a sales trip, and utters: “It’s all right. I came back.”

But everything is not all right.

Director Neil Armfield locates the play not within Loman’s Brooklyn house but in a sports stadium where hopes for his eldest son once played out.

The arena puts us within Loman’s mind, experiencing his increasingly disordered thoughts. Indeed, Miller considered calling the play The Inside of His Head.

Linda (Alison Whyte) is all too aware of the decline of Willy (Anthony LaPaglia) decline as she placates and defends him.Credit: Brett Boardman

Within his disintegrating psyche, Loman conjures characters and events from past and present. Characters sit on the bleachers throughout focused on the man to whom, as his wife Linda famously demands, attention must be paid.

The steadfast Linda (Alison Whyte) is all too aware of her husband’s decline as she placates and defends a breadwinner who has lost his salary and been reduced to selling on commission.

She must hold together their financially and emotionally troubled family where their two adult sons, the once-sporty drifter Biff (Josh Helman) and womaniser Happy (Ben O’Toole), have newly returned home.

Family is at the heart of the play, and the archetypal struggle between fathers and sons invests it with universality. Loman’s hopes for the future are most heavily invested in first-born Biff, who battles his father’s unrealistic expectations.

Loman remains unshakeable in his belief that being well liked is enough to ensure success.

A pivotal scene in which LaPaglia’s Loman pleads for his job before an uninterested boss is heartbreaking. But, as his boss reminds him, “business is business”. Loman is a cog in a capitalist wheel. The tragedy is he doesn’t see that.

LaPaglia is well-supported by an excellent cast. Whyte is outstanding as Linda, her grit and anguish palpable, not least in her final haunting monologue.

The robust Helman conveys Biff’s conflicted emotions towards his father. Their act two confrontation is gripping as Biff gains an understanding of himself and rejects his father’s pipedreams.

As Loman’s apparently successful brother Ben, Anthony Phelan is redolent of an Old Testament prophet, enhanced by an echo on his booming voice. The prophet of profits. His spectral appearance suggests his successes are a figment of Willy’s imagination.

In smaller roles Paula Arundell stands out as the flirtatious, ferocious lover, while Tom Stokes transforms from nerdy childhood friend to thoughtful adult.

Shades of brown dominate Dale Ferguson’s set, and costumes by Ferguson and Sophie Woodward create a sepia appearance of lives leached of vitality.

All the elements cohere in this fine production. It’s a searing portrait of an individual torn apart by hollow dreams; a requiem for a common man.