Sydney Dance Company artistic director Rafael Bonachela said that to mark the company's 45th anniversary, ''I wanted to give the audience very different flavours in contemporary dance''.
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The result is the three-part Interplay, which opened at the Canberra Theatre on Wednesday, its first performance outside Sydney. Two of the components were world premieres and the other was having its first Canberra performance. Each had a different choreographer.
Bonachela choreographed 2 in D Minor, a world premiere accompanied on stage by solo violinist Veronique Serret.
''It's set to a piece by Johann Sebastian Bach, the Partita in D Minor … I fell in love with this piece of music and decided I must choreograph a dance to it,'' Bonachela said.
Alongside Bach is specially commissioned electronic music by Nick Wales.
Italian choreographer Jacopo Godani's Canberra premiere work Raw Models was first performed in 2011. Bonachela said it was ''very slick, fast-paced and mysterious, creating a very sexy world''.
It had a commissioned electronic score by German duo 48 Nord.
Melbourne choreographer Gideon Obarzanek - a former Sydney Dance Company dancer and founder of Chunky Move dance company - choreographed the world premiere work L'Chaim (a Hebrew toast meaning ''To life''). For the Canberra season he replaced dramaturg and actor David Woods.
Obarzanek said: ''There's a lot of speaking in the piece. What we watch is one person in the audience and his imagination about what the show would be like if he could speak to the dancers and they could speak back to him.''
He worked as a writer and director in theatre as well as a choreographer, and L'Chaim - with music by Stefan Gregory - combines all his talents.
Interplay is on at the Canberra Theatre Centre until Saturday, at 7.30pm. There is a pre-show Q&A on Friday at 6.30pm hosted by Canberra Times arts editor Sally Pryor. Tickets $30-$63. Bookings: canberratheatrecentre.com.au or 6275 2700.
