Champions

From Form Dance Projects in Parramatta comes this highly produced new work for Sydney Festival defying the idea that sport and arty stuff like contemporary dance can never mix.

After consulting the coaches and female athletes of the Western Sydney Wanderers,  choreographer Martin del Amo and his team of eleven all-female dancers stage Champions as though in a footy stadium.

Clare Britton’s huge grassfield set is crossed with Karen Norris’ giant side lights and swinging spotlights from the sky, the dancers’ bright coloured sportswear adding to the hyperrealism.   

Dancers ape the movement of players, their warm-ups, peeling from pack, their side-moves and lines, pacing the geometry of the ground, marking and countering.  Through this lens, the movement of sports becomes sharply observed dance but, oddly, captures little of the drama of sport, the kinetic excitement and climax of a big game.  Gail Priest’s attractive rumbling score doesn’t so much drive the work as create reflective spaces.

Martin del Amo’s best achievement is not so much in his choreographic development as in the wit and framing of the game. Huge back screens feature visiting TV sports presenter Mel McLaughlin doing spot interviews with players and commentators, offering an on-going, hilarious sports-talk analysis of what we’re seeing.   Julie-Anne Long has done a fine job as dramaturg and adds to the satire as a plucky, well-feathered mascot.

Champions may drop the ball of its narrative but it’s an engaging showpiece of movement with impressive production values.

Martin Portus

Photographer: Heidrun-Lӧhr