The sudden death in 2007 of dancer/choreographer Tania Liedtke, the outstanding talent who was about to take over the Sydney Dance Company, also influenced I Cannot Know. “It’s not about her, as such,” he says. “It’s about the shock of that, that split second, about that moment. She was young, she was incredible, and then suddenly she wasn’t there.”
The phrase ‘that moment’ comes up often as Consandine describes his work. “There is a character at the heart of it,” he explains. “One person, she’s a young girl you’d see on the street, dressed very ‘Melbourne’; she’s getting to the point of where she’s passing away, in my mind, she’s in that moment – only one of those moments when you do look at the stars and feel that wonder of the universe. A simple moment that’s hard to explain. Life, for our human selves, is unbelievable, wondrous and incredible.”
Contemporary composer Georges Lentz provides the work for I Cannot Know; Consandine has used pieces from Mysterium which evokes the composer’s fascination with astronomy and spirituality. “It’s a 15 minute continuum,” he explains. “Lentz adds to the music, rather than make individual pieces. He doesn’t create a whole new piece. It’s intriguing, you don’t want to say when it starts and ends. It’s all about the universe, about stars and galaxies, about infinity; those ideas. When it comes to spirituality,” continues Consandine, “Lentz isn’t into dogma. There’s a great quote by Eliot Deutsch: ’I believe in spirituality, and yet…’” (The rest of the quote is ‘I cannot, quite clearly, be identified with it.’). “He means he’s not fixed to one place. In that, I am like-minded. The show asks that question, that question no-one has the answer to: Where does consciousness come from and where does it go? What happens when we die? A lot of Lentz’s music deals with the same concerns. Physicalising the concept is a big one.”
Mysterium provides the choreographer with more than a few challenges when it comes to teaching the dance to his cast. “It’s not your generic music, by that I mean music that is set to a particular time signature, more the classical ¾ type music. There’s nothing wrong with that; in last year’s Bodytorque show I worked with more generic ‘bow tie’ type of music, really good music but more traditional. The music for I Cannot Know is more of a soundscape; there are beats but they can be different lengths. It can be discordant and hard to listen to.” How does Consandine create a work to music like this? “I spend a lot of time listening. I just see things; feel where this should go, where that should go. What sort of moves should happen where, try to help the dancers understand. The dancers can’t count themselves in. This time I have to say to them things like “When that big sound happens, I want you to be doing this.”
How did Consandine find the music for I Cannot Know? “I wanted to use an Australian composer.” (George Lenz is from Luxemburg originally but is now based in Sydney). “I am not really hooked into the Australian music scene, so I googled award winning Australian composers; went through a whole pile of different stuff; his name popped right out – I listened to a little sample and thought ‘I’ve heard that before; I have danced to it before, with the STC, Graham Murphy used it. I really loved it.'”
Each choreographer in DNA gets a team including their pick of designers, and musicians. Most of the sound for I Cannot Know will come from a string quartet. Consandine uses eight Australia Ballet dancers in his piece. “There’s a lot of partnering, making constellations, spinning, silhouettes. It’s an unbelievable opportunity to work with incredible dancers of incredible calibre.” he says.
BY LIZA DEZFOULI
