Are you in the mood to see some great dance? If you are, get along to the Sydney Dance Company’s new production, ‘Mercury’, currently playing at the Sydney Theatre.
‘Mercury’ is a full length work created for the Company by Finnish choreographer, Kenneth Kvarnstrom. In a production that runs seventy minutes, Kvanstrom plays around with many ideas and images around the notion of mercury. Kvanstrom divides the piece into three parts, each representing the different meanings of Mercury. “Mercury is constant movement…Mercury was a Greek/Roman god…Mercury is the planet closest to the sun -this means a lot of overexposed lighting”.
Swedish designer Jens Sethzman has put together the set and lighting design.Sethzman hasconcentrated his design on focusing on Kvarnstrom’s delicate movements that give audiences so much pleasure, ‘the counterpoint between the soft, sensual movements, the lifts that float high, the softly bent leg, the slightly ornamented arm that forms a spiral, that goes into a cramped open hand with cocked fingers turning into branches’. The last time that Kvanstrom and Sethzman worked together, their production was almost completely black.
For ‘Mercury’, the stage is a large white room with a glowing orb at its rear. George Gorga scored the piece, with contemporary, cutting edge music with a techno feel.
The ten dancers from the Sydney Dance Company, Emily Amisano, Janessa Dufty, Juliette Barton, Kynan Hughes, Adam Blanch, Annabel Knight, Richard Cilli, Kalman Warhaft, Connor Dowling and Chen Wen, worked together well, vividly bring Kvanstrom’s rich work to life,and created a memorable evening of dance.
‘Mercury’ is playing the Sydney theatre, the Sydney Dance Company’s new home, until November 28.
