Dance can be wonderfully malleable when it comes to meaning. In the program note for his new The Journey Itself is Home, Rafael Bonachela writes of longing, connection and tenacity seen under the light of “a setting (or rising) moon” .

He made the work. He knows what it means for him.

There are other possibilities, thoughts sparked by the knowledge that Bonachela is coming to the end of his exceptionally long artistic leadership of SDC (not far off 20 years when he finishes at the end of next year). For me this was a piece about separation.

What if the semi-circle of Kelsey Lee’s set was not the moon but Earth seen from space? It’s an irresistible notion, given the profusion of twinkling lights (Damien Cooper’s gorgeous design) and their changing texture. A huge city at night, lights blazing, sends out its message to the universe. We are here. Please look.

Rafael Bonachela’s The Journey Itself is Home. Photo © Wendell Teodoro

In such a context the dancers, all dressed in white, seem to embody the energy of swirling atoms. They are...