Two of Australia’s best-known choreographers, Lucy Guerin and Gideon Obarzanek have joined forces in a collaboration with Indonesian music duo Senyawa to create a work entitled Attractor for Melbourne’s AsiaTopa festival. Presented by Lucy Guerin Inc and Dancenorth, Attractor will take audiences on a trance-noise odyssey, a music/dance ritual for non-believers.
Influenced by the metal bands they listened to as teenagers – Black Sabbath, Metallica, Iron Maiden – Senyawa’s performance reinterprets the Javanese tradition of entering trance through dance and music as a secular present-day form. As the music builds to euphoric pitch, the dancers are propelled into wild physical abandonment and ecstatic release. The boundaries between dancer and non-dancer, audience and performer, professional and amateur are dissolved as the performance transitions into a large-scale dance event.
Attractor includes an opportunity for a small number of audience members to be immersed in the work and move on-stage with the dancers. No dance experience is required - just curiosity and a willingness to move. To find out more, purchase tickets.
For a sneak peek at the work, click here https://vimeo.com/202711227
Attractor plays Arts Centre Melbourne, 22-26 February.
Photo: Gregory Lorenzutti