Mama, Why the Butterflies?
Every day, 8pm to 9:30pm Friday 24 January to Saturday 1 February
Mama, Why the butterflies? A new production from Sydney’s new and most innovative dance company, The New The Old The Now (NON), returns to the Entertainment Quarter.
Building on the success of a sold out debut season, NON returns with their latest creative offering, Mama, Why the Butterflies? the next chapter of Davide Di Giovanni’s poignant and pioneering choreography. This new piece is a meditation on time, and expands on the universal themes introduced in their previous work whilst celebrating the evolution of the company’s artistic vision.
Returning to the stark industrial backdrop of the Entertainment Quarter car park, Mama, Why the Butterflies? transforms a brutalist landscape into a stage where the human form becomes a canvas for meditation on existence itself. NON liberates itself from traditional dance and ballet settings, choosing cinematic sets in which to create scenic tableaux and complex characters. Free from language, the audience actively participates in unpacking the filmic imagery and primal affect of Di Giovanni’s masterwork of contemporary dance.
A self-confessed cinefile, Di Giovanni works as choreographer and director to create work that is reflective of NON’s creative purpose: to meditate on the breadth of human experience, connection and imagination.
This latest work introduces a remarkable and diverse cast with an age range of 20 to 74, allowing Di Giovanni to authentically tell the human story in all of its movements. Co-director Chloe Leong returns in a pivotal role on the stage, and off the stage as a constant source of inspiration to Di Giovanni. Leong’s progressive artistry and dedication have been essential in shaping the emotional and visual language of the piece, demonstrating grace and vulnerability and inspiring these qualities in others.
The company’s idiosyncratic talent to blend dance and cinema sees the performance metamorphose into a new art form. Utilising the paramount technical ability of established ballerinas and juxtaposing it with raw emerging talent, Mama, Why the Butterflies? blends all elements of dance into something entirely unique. An unmissable experience.