DANCE: INUK 2 BY MERYL TANKARD

PREVIEW BY AMELIA GROOM

Opening Sydney Dance Company’s 2008 season, Inuk 2 is a new work from one of the world’s most acclaimed contemporary dance figures, Meryl Tankard. ‘Inuk’ translates to ‘human being’ in Inuit, and Tankard has built the work around the notion of contemporary nomadism; travelers whose bodies can move across the world in a matter of hours, but whose minds stay rooted where they started. A ‘tribal dance for the 21st Century’, Inuk 2 features 17 dancers and journeys through different mental states, emotional intensities, geographic locations, points of view, and climactic zones.
Growing up, Tankard lived in Darwin, Melbourne, Malasia and Newcastle before she was accepted into the Australian Ballet School in Sydney. She later moved to Germany and toured with Bausch as principal artist with the company. In the late 1980s she started the Maryl Tankard Company in Canberra, producing a series of dance works, before moving to Adelaide to take on the directorship of the Australian Dance Theatre. In 1998, she began her career as a freelance choreographer, and large-scale commissions include the Opening Ceremony for the Sydney 2000 Olympics and her 2004 Sydney Festival commission Kaidan, a collaboration with Taikoz Drummers. Now recognised internationally for her experimental choreography and the originality of her dance aesthetic, this is the first time Tankard has worked with Sydney Dance Company. Featuring scenic stage design by Tankard’s long time creative partner Regis Lansac, Inuk 2 will be driven by the rhythmic chants of Inuit, Tuvan, Finnish and Portugese voices; and singer Meredith Monk also features on the soundtrack.

Inuk 2 by Meryl Tankard
Until April 19
Theatre Royal
MLC Centre, 108 King Street, Sydney
$43-75
Bookings: 1300 795 012 or www.ticketek.com.au