The Making of Rafael Bonachela’s ‘Anima’

We sat in on the initial rehearsals and creation days for ‘Anima’ with Choreographer Rafael Bonachela and the Company dancers. Here’s a little insight into their process:

When Rafael comes to creating a new work, he approaches the generation of new movement through task based activities. He uses tasks as a way to provoke the dancers and himself to create interesting movement that pushes everyone out of their own habits of moving, which supports each work to be an evolution of himself as a choreographer and for the dancers. The dancers make crucial contributions to the movement that is created by creating phrases of movement. Rafael works hard to develop an open and trusting environment for the dancers to enable people to explore their own ideas without a fear of failing.

When Rafael gives a task to the dancers, it is not done with the intention to have something made that is right or wrong but to trigger ideas to contribute to the process. It may be that none of the things that are created from a particular task actually end up in the piece. It may be that the concept of a creative task may seem like a fantastic idea on paper, but then in reality it doesn’t generate interesting movement, it can also be the reverse where a very simple task can create really beautiful movement. It is the job of the choreographer to work out what movement is relevant and appropriate for the work and what is not, if it doesn’t fit within the overall piece it will be left out, and perhaps revisited for an alternative piece.

Tasks for Amina

The Triangle Escape: The dancers were asked to explore the idea of the trapped soul. They were asked to imagine themselves in a room where one person is trying to escape and three people are preventing them from doing so.

Lost Soul: This duet was created by asking the dancers to explore the theme of the lost soul.

Untamed runs 18 – 29 Oct, Only in Sydney
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