• Submitted by: manso
• Arts and Culture
• 09 / 17 / 2010

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Sydney Morning Herald - September 15.Reviewer rating: 5 out of 5 stars. If you like your contemporary dance unapologetically alive, Danza Contemporánea de Cuba is for you.

A spectacular explosion of desire, conflict and passion, Danza Contemporánea de Cuba pitches bodies against bodies and dance against music with a furious energy that will leave you breathless.

This groundbreaking modern dance company have brought four dance productions to this bill, and audiences on any given night will be treated to three. But don't fret; Danza Contemporánea de Cuba is one well-oiled machine, sure to bring boundless enthusiasm to each finely-crafted piece.

Demo-N/Crazy, choreographed by Rafael Bonachela, opens the production with bare-bodied dancers in plain white underwear, dancing to silence. They move fluidly through a pastiche of naked emotions, telling a complex and sensual tale. Demo-N/Crazy explores love alongside solitude, gentleness with ferocity,maintaining a taut ceaseless pace against haunting vocals and swelling strings.

Carmen, choreographed by Kenneth Kvamström is a fun, colourful breather after the stark emotional intensity of Demo-N/Crazy. Based on Bizet's opera Carmen with music rearranged by Rodion Schedrin, this piece is refreshing and playful.The dancers make light of themselves and the music, mimicking bulls and birds and men who peacock for romantic attention. Carmen is at times utterly uproarious.

The final piece is Mambo 3XX1, a thoroughly modern street-inspired dance choreographed by George Céspedes. Mixing traditional Cuban music with trip hop,seventies disco and techno, this is a spirited, sweaty crescendo to the bill.Mambo 3XX1 draws all dancers on stage, then ricochets them off into the wings to focus on the couple and the individual. This piece is frantically energetic,with impossibly complicated sequences somehow seeming improvised.

But by now you'll know better. The dancers of Danza Contemporánea de Cuba are at the top of their physical games, achieving marvels of strength and grace" and sometimes gravity.

This virtuosic prowess is offset wonderfully by low-key costuming and lighting which appreciate the prime importance of the body in these works. The music is rich, varied and engaging, binding the dancers to each other and the audience to the dance. It's difficult not to be so drawn into this production that you flinch when the dancers defy the laws of physics.

Danza Contemporánea de Cuba is a raw, exuberant celebration of life, gripping from the first haunting moment until the spectacularly lively climax. This is all about bodies and what they're good for, so do yourself a favour and see this show.

By Sommer Tothill

Source: SYDNEY MORNING HERALD and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/117800