Raphael’s dancing up an Aussie storm

Raphael’s dancing up an Aussie storm

International choreographer Rafael Bonachela has had a wonderfully diverse career thus far: pop choreographer for artists including Kylie Minogue and Primal Scream, founder of the eponymous Bonachela Dance Company, and now, artistic director for what is arguably Australia’s most respected dance company, the Sydney Dance Company.
This Sydney Star Observer correspondent was scheduled for a one-on-one chat in Bonachela’s hotel room during his flying visit to Melbourne to promote the première of his Sydney Dance Company debut, 360.

Unfortunately, Melbourne’s typically bizarre weather dampened our chances of meeting -” freak storms and flash floods around the city pushed Bonachela’s already tight schedule to the brink, so the Star settled for some phone time with the softly-spoken Spanish choreographer.
I’m sorry, I’ve been running around everywhere getting wet today, he laughed mischievously.
Barcelona-born Bonachela moved to Sydney five months ago, having visited Australia many times over the years. He’s enjoying his tenure in the harbourside city.
It’s great, I can’t complain. I live in a great city and I have an amazing job -” that’s the reason I moved here, for the opportunity to work with such an established dance company, but with a very clean slate. I didn’t think about it twice when I was offered the job.
Bonachela originally came to the Sydney Dance Company as a guest choreographer last year, before progressing to the role of artistic director. Despite his impressive CV, he still had to work to get the position.
I did an interview, of course. It was a world search, and I knew of many people who travelled all the way to Australia just for an interview. I had been invited to be a guest choreographer with the Sydney Dance Company last June, and I never thought I’d end up applying for the job of artistic director. But working with the company and seeing the potential, I knew I wanted to go for it.
Since taking on the position, he’s been vocal in his praise of the dance talent Australia has to offer, describing Australian dancers as fearless.
For some reason I always end up working with Australian dancers -” they’re spread out around the world. They’re very physical, and that’s Australia -” it’s a country that’s very physical and about the body and being healthy. Swimming, running -” here in Sydney, I see people keeping fit every day. Of course, dance is an artistic thing, but it’s also very physical.
Bonachela admits the dancer-director relationship is an intense one, and stops short of using the word -˜friendship’.
The Sydney Dance Company has 17 dancers, which is a lot. In England, my company only had six dancers. I don’t stop myself from getting close to dancers, but it’s a process and it can’t just happen. I am the director and there has to be some sort of distance between us -” but not in any sort of -˜I am the boss, you work for me’ way. But obviously we work together every day from 10 until 6. We go for drinks together, have dinners together, but everyone needs their own space so you can see each other again on Monday.
He said that the Company’s new work, We Unfold, represented a definite progression from 360.
With 360, I was given a very talented company with dancers I didn’t know. I’m very happy and proud of it, but it came out of that initial eight week period of getting to know the dancers.
Bonachela ran into controversy early into his tenure as artistic director: one of his first actions was to let go seven of the company’s existing dancers and replace them with fresh faces, a move he remains unapologetic about.
Anything that was said at the time didn’t affect me, because I knew that I had moved to this country to do what I do in a passionate and honest way. I had been here working with the dancers for three months, and they were dancers who had become friends. But it’s about being true to what we do -“ I don’t do this because it’s my job, I do it because it’s my passion and because I want to make great art, and that’s only going to happen with the right dancers, he said.
Before me, the company had the same director for 13 years, so that’s a great legacy. But I had to do what I had to do -” no one’s going to stop me from doing that, and I’m not going to feel bad about it.
That may all sound somewhat ruthless in print, but Bonachela’s genial voice and heavy Spanish accent cushion the blow of such bold statements.
One of the recurring themes throughout his career has been his apparent ease at crossing the art/commerce divide, seemingly without compromise. He says taking dance to the masses is one of his biggest aims.
We performed on So You Think You Can Dance a few weeks ago, he said, and all I can say is the next day we had double the hits on our website and double the ticket sales. The results are clear as water.
I was a kid who wanted to dance and there was nothing for me. If I’d have seen that on TV I would have told my parents, -˜That’s what I want to do’. Anything that helps to put dance into people’s conciousness can only be a positive thing.
Straddling this art/commerce divide has also seen Bonachela create the dance moves for pop concert by the likes of Kylie Minogue (he choreographed both her Fever and Showgirl tours) and Tina Turner.
When I do work like 360, I make choices that are to do with what I want to express, he said.
Whereas for a concert, I’m thinking: OK, she’s Kylie, this is a song about love, the next one is about lust, the next one is about love again. It needs to be fun, it needs to make her look wonderful -” it’s about her. It’s a different approach, but I just happen to enjoy both.
I had to ask Bonachela what it was like working with -˜Our Kylie’.
It was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. She gave me my first opportunity -” at the time, I was a dancer with a dream to choreograph. I was such a young choreographer without much experience, and when I came out of choreographing the Fever tour, I felt like a grown-up. I felt like I had confidence in myself.
On top of it all, she was a very talented, giving and professional individual. I have a lot of respect for her in every way.

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