Takes more than two to tango

SIDI Larbi Cherkaoui is contemporary dance’s leading shape-shifter.

Milonga 22 05 13 Theatre%20jorat 2899 Picture: Supplied

SIDI Larbi Cherkaoui is contemporary dance’s leading shape-shifter. The last thing you can say about his work is that you’ve seen it all before. You haven’t. In the past decade he has worked with contemporary Kathak exponent Akram Khan (Zero Degrees), the Shaolin monks (Sutra), flamenco artist Maria Pages (Dunas), with sculptor Antony Gormley on Zero Degrees, Sutra and Babel (Words) and now a group of superb tango dancers and musicians. And those are just the performances that have come to Australia.

He’s also delved into the worlds of kuchipudi, manga, Corsican singing and Japanese music, among other things. Cherkaoui is arguably the world’s most inquisitive choreographer and the results are always noteworthy.

Milonga was born of Cherkaoui’s fascination with the intimacy of the tango and with the fact that “in Milongas (dance parties) you are sitting somewhere. And a person invites you to dance, to be held by you.”

Milonga is not a pure tango dance performance any more than Dunas was an exposition of the art of flamenco. Cherkaoui isn’t an expert in this field, he is an inquirer who wants to see what the form can do. He uses tango, often spectacularly, as a demonstration of longing, belonging, desiring and much else.

Couples merge and split, groups form and dissolve and emotions flare and calm down. These men and women dance when they are happy and dance when they are angry, or sad, or whimsical or in love. There may be two of them, or three — a fabulously athletic male trio is a standout — or more, all displaying the brilliant oppositions of the tango at a spectacular level as razor sharp and highly intricate leg swivels have their counterpoint in long, deep bends and lunges.

It’s all very sexy, it goes without saying, and there are several moments of high excitement as women are manipulated at high speed around and above their partners’ bodies. Cherkaoui puts a contemporary dance couple into the mix too, and a long, complicated, sinuous duet has the woman rarely putting her feet on the ground.

Moment by moment Milonga is delightful. It doesn’t, however, entirely hold together. At different points Cherkaoui has projections of city life race by on a huge screen, and at others we see cut-out figures observing the dancers. Their function isn’t unclear, but seems arbitrary. Why this, now? It’s hard to say. The joins show.

Cherkaoui on a slightly lesser day is much better than most, however, and the highs are greatly rewarding. Unfortunately this Sydney Opera House season was very short and its original opening night — Thursday — collided with Bangarra Dance Theatre’s new Patyegarang (Bangarra is a Sydney Opera House resident company). Bangarra’s press night ultimately took precedence, Milonga was seen on Friday night and it has now ended.

Milonga. Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. Sydney Opera House, June 13.