The Queensland Ballet’s latest show Synergy is running from 27th July to 4th August at the Thomas Dixon Centre, West End. The opening night was sold out, and the performances were absolutely beautiful, with exceptional lighting and artistic direction by Li Cunxin.
Synergy is a spectacular and highly impressive performance that has left the audience clapping and cheering until the very final moments of the show, quite literally shouting “bravo” many times, and it’s no wonder why. Featuring dancers from Pre-Professional Jette Parker Young Artist Programs and Company Artists, the show was everything it needed to be and more.
The acts included ‘Giselle’ choreographed by Jack Lister, ‘Moving Portraits’ choreographed by Louise Deleur, ‘Lunar’ choreographed by Rani Luther followed by an interval to proceed with ‘Segui’ choreographed by Vito Bernasconi and ‘Nocturne’ choreographed by Jack Lister.
Each performance was filled with grace, passion and precision and the intimate venue allowed for a poetic experience, helping to dissolve any barriers between performer and audience. The proximity between the audience and the performers allowed for a closer examination of each movement made by the dancers, and ultimately allowed the viewer to be further immersed in the performance, inside the Charles Lisner Studio.
It came to mind, throughout the performance, the amount of practice, discipline and courage it must take to present this art form on the stage and as I continued to watch, I became more and more impressed by not only the technicalities of the performance, but by the emotional depth and symbolic representation of themes on love, life and art itself.
From intimate performances between male and female dancers such as with ‘Giselle’ featuring Lina Kim and Samuel Packer and ‘Segui’ featuring Sophie Zoricic and Vito Bernasconi to larger group performances, such as with ‘Moving Portraits’ and ‘Nocturne’, the show provided a nice variety of dance styles, moods and themes.
My favourite pieces were ‘Giselle’ and ‘Segui’ as the two pairs of dancers demonstrated through their routine the meaning of love, being close and being apart, and ultimately made me engage with the idea of human connection, and the expressive and complementary nature of the male and female form through dance.
Credit to lighting designers Skye Lilliss (Giselle) and Scott Chiverton (Segui) for their amazing efforts towards the lighting of both pieces, in particular the atmosphere created by soft light and shadows, and blue light illuminating the dancers in darkness. The lighting was not technically complex, nor did it need to be, it was the perfect amount to complement the performances and was never distracting, continually evoking the emotion from the dancers and dancing along with them in a sense.
The group performances were also highly engaging to view, and were technically planned out and choreographed in a way that made the dancers seem like a puzzle in how they moved. In ‘Moving Portraits’ the dancers were moving boxes in which they danced around as well as stood on, while being pushed forward or in a circle, or jumped over. The sequences were complex and entertaining to keep up with, as the scene began to change over time, morphing into a different setting altogether.
There were also moments where the dancers would use their pointe shoes to make a beat, and all the dancers followed in step, creating a kind of ballet march, that was very intriguing to watch, it was different to what I had seen before, and was very powerful. The group performances were powerful in the way that they were choreographed as with ‘Lunar’ and ‘Nocturne’ and presented different concepts and meaning through each piece.
The final performance ‘Nocturne’ was beautiful in the sense that a white layer of material was rolled onto the floor of the stage, which was used as a surface to dance on, cleverly choreographed by Jack Lister. Two dancers, Josephine Frick and Pol Andrés Thió, began to make a mark on the white floor through the colours and paint that was on their bodies, rubbing off the paint onto each other and the surface through their continued movement.
All in all, the performance was an impressive showcase of the very talented dancers from Queensland Ballet Jette Parker Young Artist, Queensland Ballet Trainee Artist, Queensland Ballet Pre-Professional Program Dancer and Queensland Ballet Company Artists. I could continue to try and explain the creative visions, choreography, dancing, routines, lighting and overall performance I have seen, but there is nothing quite the same as to view this absolute treat of a show in person. For, what is the world without art like this?
27 July - 4th August, 2018
Thomas Dixon Centre, West End
Review: Joanna Letic
Image: Jette Parker Young Artists Isabella Swietlicki and Mali Comlekci
Photography: David Kelly