Downunderland

By BERNADETTE RAE

The choreographer of Underland, the Sydney Dance Company's new extravaganza to the music of Nick Cave, declares the Australian artists who will perform the work in Auckland to be "virtuosic animals ... phenomenal ... some of the best dancers around".

And Stephen Petronio would know. With a reputation for fearlessly inventive and audacious choreography, his work has been commissioned by some of the world's leading contemporary dance companies. His Stephen Petronio Company, founded in 1984, has also toured extensively through the United States, Canada, Europe, South America and Russia.

Australian critics have described Underland as "a dark feast of inventive movement structure that seamlessly captures both wild abandon and formalism", as "wildly and yearningly romantic while heading to hell in a handbasket" and like "atoms colliding to create an explosive, fleeting force".

The New York-based choreographer describes his usual style as intimate - there are just eight dancers in his company - and an improvisational interplay of "baroque detail" because his own dancers have studied his movement language so carefully for so long. But the Sydneysiders "brought out new and different things in me".

"I don't usually step on the gas on that side of virtuosity. But these dancers have so much classical facility, are so game and interested in exploring a new movement vocabulary - and it is such a well-equipped dance company, I just had everything at my fingertips."

His own dancers were "very jealous" when they saw the video of Underland after its premiere in Sydney last year.

Petronio describes the work as his favourite and his first exploration of a complete song cycle, an intuitive response to the music, abstract and expressive and "not really a story except for the intuitive story the body tells".

The name Underland comes from the idea of coming from beneath something - beneath skin, beneath bone, beneath the conscious mind.

All Petronio's work over the past two years has been named to give the dances a location in place, and context, he says.

The choice of Nick Cave's music as inspiration for the Sydney Dance Company work was a spontaneous one. Petronio has been a long-time fan of Cave, "the alternative music God".

"Cave's territory is my neck of the woods."

So when Sydney Dance Company's artistic director Graeme Murphy, contemplating a six-month sabbatical, asked Petronio over dinner in New York if he would be interested in a commission, Petronio's off-the-cuff reply was, "Give me Nick Cave and I'll be there."

"It didn't occur to me right away that Cave was from Melbourne and therefore an Australian, and it might seem presumptuous of me to take Australian music as my inspiration - and when it did occur, I couldn't resist."

Petronio and Murphy have a long professional association and share the same agent.

"We were," says Petronio, "small boys together on the touring circuit. We were interviewed together in Amsterdam, well somewhere in Holland, 20 years ago. I have always followed Graeme's work."

The songs chosen from Cave's extensive repertoire for Underland are Petronio's personal favourites - plus one.

"I asked everyone what their favourite Cave songs were," he says, "but in the end I just chose the ones I love and The Ship Song, because Tara Subkoff (Imitation of Christ) who collaborated on the costumes and who is brilliant said I had to include that one. And now it is one of my favourite pieces, more human, gentle and sexy - a nice influence."

Petronio is 48 years old and still dancing. He made his last solo work last year and plans to continue performing as his body grows and matures although he does get tired of watching his weight all the time and can see the pleasures ahead in "just letting the belt out".

He predicts a giant resurgence in "beautiful pure movement" in dance for the future and feels that the big dance theatre phase, dance circus and the European trends have had their day.

Petronio lives in Brooklyn with three bald sphinx cats and his partner of eight years, Jean-Mark Slack, who is also bald.

For this post-practice transtasman telephone interview he has donned "head-to-toe Japanese designer Cabane de Zucca: wacky pants and a thermal sweatshirt featuring all-over Japanese cartoon action hero figures - very big, like pyjamas. I am very comfortable."

He confesses to having "big, beautiful feet", being allergic to everything and to feeling very hopeful about the future.

Last week he took part in a fundraiser for John Kerry.

LOWDOWN

WHAT: The Sydney Dance Company's Nick Cave-inspired production Underland

WHERE: Aotea Centre, Wednesday to Saturday

THE SONGS: Ma Sanctum,Wild World, Carney, The Weeping Song, The Ship Song, Stagger Lee, The Mercy Seat, Death is Not the End