Hear your body torque

At a time when the Australian Ballet is celebrating its past with a wonderful production of Giselle, it’s also preparing for its future.

Bodytorque is about as rock and roll as the Australian Ballet gets. Over four nights, five young choreographers are given the chance to work with their choice of dancers, and show the direction they would like to see ballet go.

One of the choreographers is Australian Ballet coryph?Tim Farrar. Farrar is a returning star of Bodytorque, having participated in last year’s program. He also performed in the 2004 season, which featured women choreographers and male dancers.

Farrar says Bodytorque is not just an opportunity for performers to show off.

It’s great for Australian Ballet audiences, he tells Sydney Star Observer.

It’s a great opportunity to see things that they might not get to see in the main season.

It’s also a chance for audiences as well as dancers to step outside what they might normally do and see. It’s informing audiences that there’s a whole different range of things and that ballet can be a lot of different things.

The theme of this year’s Bodytorque season is Face the Music. Each of the five choreographers teamed up with a young Australian composer at the AYO National Music Camp in January.

In just two weeks, and under the supervision of the Australian Ballet’s Artistic Director David McAllister and composition tutor Gerard Brophy, the pairs created Bodytorque.

Farrar and his counterpart, Cyrus Meurant, came up with a five-part performance, featuring different combinations of dancers.

Choreography is a side-step for Farrar, who is currently juggling rehearsals for another Australian Ballet production as well as Bodytorque. But, he says, it’s a welcome one.

I’ve always had an interest in it, he says.

Even when I was young and my sister and I grew up dancing together, I would always pull her into our makeshift studio – the kitchen – and tell her how to dance. Even then I was playing around with ideas.

Bodytorque. Face the Music will be performed at Sydney Theatre at Walsh Bay from Thursday 1 June until Saturday 3 June. Bookings on 9250 1999 or at the Sydney Theatre website.