★★★★☆ Bonachela’s company brings out the beast in man, and the man in the beast.

Roslyn Packer Theatre, Sydney
October 19, 2016

I’ll admit that when it first appeared in 2014 as part of Sydney Dance Company’s inaugural New Breed programme I was unsure as to where Wildebeest was heading. At the time, Gabrielle Nankivell’s work struck me as accomplished but rather overliteral and structurally loose. What a difference two years makes – and kudos to Rafael Bonachela for seeing what I could not – for what emerged here as the first part of Untamed, was an original, engaging and tightly argued new dance work.

In hindsight, the rather portentous opening words “Arise wildebeest” with references to shattered fragments reforming and storms feel unnecessary, given the work’s title and the clarity of Nankivell’s vision. A single contorting form struggling to stand transports the viewer instantly to the world of the new born, arms and legs flailing, occasionally tensing horn-like in the air. This unlicked wildebeest-whelp proceeds to strut and paw the ground, yet any overtly bestial mimicry is so deeply embedded in the choreography that it never topples into the awkward realm of ‘animal improv’. The limb extensions are handled...