A vision of people at one with the place that nurtures them; a blurring of the divide between the human and the mechanical; and an embedding of the spoken word into dance in a way that extends the understanding of how movement can be received. 

This year’s Bespoke – Queensland Ballet’s annual program of new work – gives a lot of bang for its buck. 

Yolande Brown’s Nhamgan Ngali Nyin, we see all of you. Photo © David Kelly

It starts with Yolande Brown’s Nhamgan Ngali Nyin, we all see you and its ace up the sleeve, guest artist Tyrel Dulvarie. Dulvarie is one of the country’s finest and most charismatic dancers, in demand at most of Australia’s contemporary companies. Here he is potently cast as a guiding spirit in Brown’s evocation of physical elements of Country and the connection bodies and souls have with them.

A translucent cloth rises, billows, changes shape and is suffused with the colours of earth, sky and water in the show’s elegantly simple, transfixing design. Under its protection, dancers curve, sway, scatter, roll, form monuments and seemingly float like leaves on wind or water....