2 One Another

09-31 Mar ,

Theatre

An acclaimed designer is helping Sydney Dance Company to tread new ground for their latest world premiere production

First published on 31 Jan 2012. Updated on 1 Apr 2012.

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Tony Assness knows how to put on a show. He’s worked as designer and creative director on some of the biggest live events Australia has seen, including the City of Sydney’s 75th anniversary celebrations for the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the 2011 Brisbane Festival.

But there’s nothing Assness can do, he says, to upstage the human body at its best. Assness first worked with Sydney Dance Company and its artistic director Rafael Bonachela in 2008, creating costumes, sets and integrated big-screen visuals for the acclaimed 360°. Now, he’s collaborating with Bonachela again on the latest SDC production 2 One Another. “My role is very much to tap into where Raf is at aesthetically,” Assness says. “I’m old school, in the sense that I believe that the designer is there to serve the work.”

In the case of 2 One Another, both Assness and Bonachela decided the best way of serving the work was stimulating change in the company. One of the key changes they decided on was literally underfoot: this time around, Bonachela’s dancers will be taking to a white floor rather than a black one.

It may seem like a minor detail. But, in contemporary dance, particularly on the vast Sydney Theatre stage, a white floor is tantamount to turning the lights on in a darkened room, throwing the dancers into stark relief. “When everything’s black you can light a body from the side, show the body in space,” says Assness. “But the minute you try the same lighting on a white floor the whole stage lights up. You don’t have the luxury of focus.”

The colour of the floor has fundamentally affected the way Bonachela – who has a reputation for measured, intimate choreography – has approached the work. If the movement on stage is too small, there’s the danger of the dancers being dwarfed by the white space. “The dancing has to be bigger,” Assness says. “Raf isn’t traditionally very showy – his choreography is thrillingly intimate. So this is very scary and very thrilling.”

Assness’s design also includes a 5m x 16m low-res LED screen that will be integrated with the music and the movements of the dancers. Tellingly, Assness uses the word ‘dance’ to refer to all the different elements in the production. “I want the costumes to be a second skin. I want the space they exist in to be one with the dancer. This is about amazing dance – and it’s a dance between everything on stage, all working as one, all working as a single entity. That’s the hardest thing.

“It’s already an incredibly rich production. But even if you were to strip everything away, I think you would be blown away. My job is to ramp it up.”

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Words by Darryn King