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Description
What The Critics Say
Performance History
Choreography & Concept
Stephen Petronio
Music
Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
Visual Design
Ken Tabachnick
Video Artist
Mike Daly
Costume
Tara Subkoff
Lighting
Ken Tabachnick
Duration
70 minutes [no interval]
Ensemble
16–18 dancers
Description
Click here to view the Underland E-Card
Underland is a full-length work inspired by the music of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. Petronio has built a body of work with high profile artists ranging from Lou Reed and the Beastie Boys to Cindy Sherman and Anish Kapoor - and Underland, commissioned by Graeme Murphy, is no exception.
An ambitious theatrical collaboration, Underland received its world premiere on 27 May 2003 at the Sydney Opera House. Joining Petronio from New York for the project were Tara Subkoff, of the 'Imitation of Christ' fashion label, and visual and lighting designer Ken Tabachnick, who worked with Australian video artist Mike Daly. Conversing with Nick Cave on the music landscape for the production were producer Tony Cohen and soundscape artist Paul Healy.
Underland provided Sydney Dance Company's talented ensemble of dancers with the challenge of mastering Petronio's highly influential, visceral language in a short creative period - a challenge they met with dazzling results. The dancers perform Petronio's intricate, angular movement with grace and ease. Described by Petronio as an 'archaeological dig through some of Nick Cave's most beautiful masterpieces', Underland unravels in a series of solos, duets, quartets and asymmetric ensemble formations. The triptych of screens provides a cinematic backdrop to the journey, the mood of which, like Subkoff's costumes, shifts in rhythm with Cave's music throughout this frenetically energised dance piece.
Click here to view the Underland E-Card
An ambitious theatrical collaboration, Underland received its world premiere on 27 May 2003 at the Sydney Opera House. Joining Petronio from New York for the project were Tara Subkoff, of the 'Imitation of Christ' fashion label, and visual and lighting designer Ken Tabachnick, who worked with Australian video artist Mike Daly. Conversing with Nick Cave on the music landscape for the production were producer Tony Cohen and soundscape artist Paul Healy.
Underland provided Sydney Dance Company's talented ensemble of dancers with the challenge of mastering Petronio's highly influential, visceral language in a short creative period - a challenge they met with dazzling results. The dancers perform Petronio's intricate, angular movement with grace and ease. Described by Petronio as an 'archaeological dig through some of Nick Cave's most beautiful masterpieces', Underland unravels in a series of solos, duets, quartets and asymmetric ensemble formations. The triptych of screens provides a cinematic backdrop to the journey, the mood of which, like Subkoff's costumes, shifts in rhythm with Cave's music throughout this frenetically energised dance piece.
Venues, Dates & Bookings
What The Critics Say
Truly excellent multimedia dance theatre is all too rare in Australia, so when the lights came up on the triptych of screens that forms the backdrop to Stephen Petronio’s Underland and a thread of white smoke began to snake its way across them, chills rand down my spine. The rest of this dark, abstract, wide-ranging work did not disappoint... between the music, the spoken and sung word, the magnificent screen work by Sydney video artist Mike Daly, and Sydney Dance Company's superb dancing, Underland is a dark feast, a melancholy celebration of all we are and might be.
JACQUELINE PASCOE, DANCE AUSTRALIA, 2003
weapons-grade movement
DEBORAH JONES, THE AUSTRALIAN, 2003
[Underland] is an intriguing dance piece with compelling dance and constantly changing moods - or rather, an overall mood of thoughtful solemnity that lifts, deepens, swirls and edges its way into a range of subtle variations... Its intensity and emotional depth take hold in a partnership of dance, music and visuals... Everyone who can should see it. Perhaps more than once.
JILL SYKES, THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, 2003
inventive movement structure that seamlessly captures both wild abandon and formalism.
JULIE HUFFER, SUN-HERALD, 2003
the most marvellous thing is to see how the dancers have responded to Petronio.
DIANA SIMMONDS, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH, 2003
Petronio’s skill as a choreographer manifested in a profusion of solos, combinations and formations, an impressive variety of modalities and infinite variations… Petronio’s originality shines through those dancers most suited to his more frenetic range; Bradley Chatfield and Chylie Cooper’s duets and solos dazzle and Katie Ripley’s ‘Prelude to Weep’ is another high point.
ERIN BRANNIGAN, REALTIME, 2003
[Bradley Chatfield] dances… with such thrilling corporeality and spine-bending, time-bending ease.
CHRIS BOYD, THE AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW, 2003
It’s a privilege to watch magnificent dancers at the peak of their powers.
OLIVIA STEWART, COURIER MAIL, BRISBANE, 2003
The work confirms that Murphy is one of Australia’s most flamboyant and startling artists and also one of the country’s most theatrical collaborators.
MICHELLE POTTER, THE CANBERRA TIMES, 2002
9.5/10: Non-narrative and non-linear, Underland lies somewhere beyond the realm of language: it gets under your skin, seeps into your pores. Essentially, it is Stephen Petronio's emotive response to Nick Cave's music and the great sum of any clever parts. When those parts - movement, sound, film and design - combine at the right time in space, it's like atoms colliding to create an explosive, fleeting force.
JULIE HUFFER, SUN-HERALD, 2003
It is technically demanding, but the dancers rise to the challenge… with an aggressively gritty panache.
HILARY CRAMPTON, THE AGE, MELBOURNE, 2003
[Nick Cave’s] music is the key to Underland. Wildly and yearningly romantic while heading to hell in a handbasket, it niggles and jangles but also gets to the heart of the matter. Cave's gift is to be able to bypass sentimentality on his way to richer, darker emotional states.
DEBORAH JONES, THE AUSTRALIAN, 2003
There are 18 dancers on display and Petronio's choreography seems to rejoice in this virtual army of virtuoso performers, whisking them on to the stage in fluid formations at such speed and in such ever-changing combinations that there seems to be a least double that number of bodies...The costumes are spectacular: wisps of brief black, scarlet and green tutus worn with bra tops and garters, deconstructed army fatigues and, finally all white...Underland is certainly impressive, stunning, a bombardment of talent and cleverness.
BERNADETTE RAE, THE NEW ZEALAND HERALD, 2004
Brilliant, dazzling, stunning, different: superlatives compound.
MELDA BRUNETTE, DANCE INTERNATIONAL 2005
Performance History
8-11 March 2006
His Majesty's Theatre
Perth, Australia
18–28 June 2003
Playhouse, Queensland Performing Arts Centre
Brisbane, Australia
3–12 July 2003
State Theatre, The Arts Centre
Melbourne, Australia
16-19 November 2004
The Opera House
Wellington, New Zealand
10-13 November 2004
ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre at The Edge
Auckland, New Zealand
18-19 March 2005
The Capital, Bendigo's Performing Arts Centre
Bendigo, Australia
22 March 2005
Her Majesty's Theatre
Ballarat, Australia
11-12 May 2005
Brighton Dome, Brighton Festival
Brighton, United Kingdom
27 May–14 June 2003
Opera Theatre, Sydney Opera House
Sydney, Australia
18-22 July 2006
Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre
Canberra, Australia
8-11 March 2006
His Majesty's Theatre
Perth, Australia
18–28 June 2003
Playhouse, Queensland Performing Arts Centre
Brisbane, Australia
3–12 July 2003
State Theatre, The Arts Centre
Melbourne, Australia
16-19 November 2004
The Opera House
Wellington, New Zealand
10-13 November 2004
ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre at The Edge
Auckland, New Zealand
18-19 March 2005
The Capital, Bendigo's Performing Arts Centre
Bendigo, Australia
22 March 2005
Her Majesty's Theatre
Ballarat, Australia
11-12 May 2005
Brighton Dome, Brighton Festival
Brighton, United Kingdom
27 May–14 June 2003
Opera Theatre, Sydney Opera House
Sydney, Australia
18-22 July 2006
Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre
Canberra, Australia