A couple of weeks ago, I attended the Ochre Contemporary Dance Company’s impressive debut production, Diaphanous: Seeing Through And Beyond, at the State Theatre Centre. This is not a review as such; rather, my purpose is simply to alert readers to the exciting homegrown talent that was on show.
The vision for the Ochre Contemporary Dance Company grew out of the West Australian Aboriginal Dance Company (founded in 2007). Unlike the high-profile Sydney-based Australian Aboriginal dance company, Bungarra Dance Theatre, Ochre draws its talent from multiple cultural sources. Diaphanous is a multicultural collaboration, featuring six indigenous and two non-indigenous dancers, and incorporating creation myths from the Southern and Northern hemispheres (Australian Aboriginal and Ancient Greek).
Picture taken by Colin Murty, published in The Australian online (link here)
I love ballet and dance, especially contemporary, but I don’t know enough about the form to offer informed comment on Diaphanous. I can say that I found the dancers vibrant and emotive. The soundscape, which melded traditional Aboriginal didgeridoo and click sticks with western percussion and electronica, worked spectacularly well in dramatically enhancing the already arresting onstage action. Terrif.
Mark down the Ochre Dance Company in your cultural event alerts diary, bookmark their website and keep an eye on it for news of their next production. If Diaphanous is any indication of things to come, we’re in for something special from these guys in the years ahead.