Melbourne Reviews

Melbourne is spoiled with regular visits from Sydney Dance Company, but not usually in the intimate packaging of Somos. Made three years ago as a side project, Somos is now touring in its own right. It all unfolds on a small rectangle of space, surrounded on four sides by an up close and personal audience. It's very "boudoir" – and far from the Playhouse environs that we are used to. 

Even though the setting is smaller, the full ensemble is all still there, making certain moments overflow in bustling and space-eating kinaesthetic flurries. There’s also a heady mix of duos, trios and small groupings, mixing genders and couplings in a fluid, constantly changing fashion. 

Choreographer Rafael Bonachela hails proudly from Spain and Somos (which means “we are” in Spanish) is very much a love letter to Spanish language music and specifically music from his childhood. Even without understanding all the words, across pop, jazz, Ranchero and more, the songs feel universal. Soulful, fiery, painful. 

Love is found and lost; people are betrayed. There’s lust, conflict and soft romance. Framed with Spanish street sounds and mixed by Nick Wales, there’s music from Silvia Perez Cruz, Rosalia and Lola Beltran, to name a few. There’s even a French contribution (Ne me quitte pas by Nina Simone) but Spanish is definitely the overriding theme. 

With the dancers clad in various fishnets, lace and leather (a little BDSM, a little goth, a little punk and sexy), the dancers are sweatily intertwined and only inches away from pressing flesh with their audience voyeurs. Even more so when the red strips of sheer curtains that envelope the stage rise away early in the piece, allowing an unimpeded view of the muscular and skillful bodies. This is the first time audiences have had such a raw, physically close rrlationship with the SDC. 

It's 50-minute format, moves track to track at a good pace and is long enough – it's always better to leave us wanting more than less! 

It’s a new generation of SDC dancers – a fresh cohort. Bonachela’s choreographic technique, with its distinct accents, ripples and sinuous changes, is not easy to perform. It’s strenuous and needs quick reflexes to execute and a mature emotionality to make it read genuinely.

The fresh faces do a great job. They have a different feel to more veteran performers, but this is to be expected. Five of them are brand new to the company and only newly professional ... not that audiences would be able to tell. They danced like pros and lifted Somos to its emotional and physical potential.