Photo: Pedro Greig
NUDE LIVE SYDNEY DANCE COMPANY & ART GALLERY OF NSW | AUSTRALIA
NUDE LIVE
SYDNEY DANCE COMPANY & ART GALLERY OF NSW AUSTRALIA | WORLD PREMIERE
ART GALLERY OF NSW 7–10, 14–17, 21–23 JANUARY 60 MINS Choreography Rafael Bonachela Dancers Marlo Benjamin, Izzac Carroll, Fiona Jopp, Olivia Kingston, Zachary Lopez, David Mack & Oliver Savariego Producers Ashlie Hunter (AGNSW) and Dominic Chang (SDC) Stage Manager Simon Turner Music Nick Wales, Bree Van Reyk, Franz Schubert, Johann Sebastian Bach, Francesco Cilea, Gustav Mahler, Carl Vine, Igor Stravinsky, Edvard Grieg, Maurice Ravel Music supplied courtesy of ABC Classics and Nick Wales. Thanks to Toby Chadd and Nick Wales. Exhibition Curators Justin Paton, Art Gallery of New South Wales Emma Chambers, Tate The exhibition Nude: art from the Tate collection is a collaboration between Tate and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. This performance was made possible by generous support of Kenneth R Reed AM, Leonard Groat, Kiera Grant, Carole Lamerton, Ray Wilson OAM & Robyn Martin-Weber. Nude Live is a non-linear work performed within the exhibition. Multiple performances take place simultaneously NUDE LIVE
STILL LIFE DIMITRIS PAPAIOANNOU | GREECE
– so feel free to move back and forth through the rooms. Absolutely no photography is permitted during the performance. And please don’t touch the art unless the art touches you. ABOUT THE WORK The intersection of visual and performing arts is not uncommon, but it often happens in the performing arts space of a theatre. It is a rare moment to be let loose in the Art Gallery of NSW, especially amongst the extraordinary artworks in Nude: art from the Tate collection. The joy of creating Nude Live specifically for performance in a gallery space is, for me, the opportunity to interact with the visual arts entirely their own terms. The lighting is limited and fixed, there are no seats to relax in and watch from beyond theatre’s “fourth wall” and no linear progression for an audience to follow. Instead people move through the space at their own pace, engaging with specific aspects of the work for whatever duration they choose. I wanted Nude Live to be its own piece. Yes, it responds to and engages with the artworks, but it also exists as an ephemeral piece that moves lightly amongst the stillness and permanence of paintings and sculptures. It is a work that explores the living and breathing body, the sensuous and intimate body. My thanks go to the dancers and to Justin Paton and all at the Art Gallery of NSW for helping breathe life into the nude.
The nude compels as a subject for art because it is all about us. We all have naked bodies under our clothes and we’re all fascinated by the bodies of others. For as long as artists have been making art, they’ve placed those bodies at the heart of the picture. But something happens in Nude Live that is, perhaps, unprecedented. In Nude Live, some of the great artists of the past 200 years – Turner, Picasso, Bacon, Bourgeois and more – are joined by eight further artists: seven extraordinary dancers from the Sydney Dance Company and their Artistic Director Rafael Bonachela. I thought I knew what to expect when I attended this event’s first ‘undressed’ rehearsal. I knew that the dancers would respond directly to the artworks. What I hadn’t expected was how strongly the artworks would seem to respond in their turn, drawing energy and new significance from the bodies twisting, tangling, plunging in front of them. The stillness of the art dramatized the dancers’ dynamism while the dancers amplified the art’s profound stillness. When the performance ended, I wished the dancers could stay so all viewers could experience this amazing ricochet. The exhibition looks different to me now, and I know this performance will move how you see it too. Justin Paton Head curator, International Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales
Rafael Bonachela Artistic Director, Sydney Dance Company
CARRIAGEWORKS 27–29 JANUARY
“BRILLIANT.” DAGENS NYHETER