Lewis Major was born in country South Australia. He’s from the land and the open sky that goes with it. At first glance his work would seem to have nothing to do with a rural environment. The three pieces in the sleek, elegant Triptych zoom in tightly to look at bodies and how they respond in the presence of light.

Triptych. Photo © Jane Hobson

Triptych is as much a visual arts experience as it is dance. There are no characters, no narrative. There is, however, a powerful sense of the star-filled canopy above us as Major’s superlative dancers reach for the sky again and again and, particularly in the work titled Unfolding, could themselves be part of the cosmos. 

Other viewers may have an entirely different response. That’s the beauty of dance and of Triptych. It can hold multiple meanings simultaneously. Triptych can be small and vast. Nothing is wrong.

A brief trio, Prologue, is formal, gestural and hypnotic, suggesting some of the building blocks of classical dance. Unfolding is for a small group and awesome lighting – the adjective is appropriate – that deceives the eye and fools the brain. 

Light is seen as substance as sheets of light sweep across the stage like translucent sails. Dancers float on the dappled surface of a lake. Bodies are painted with light, living art works of ravishing beauty. Narrow, intricately decorated beams thrillingly rotate as women balance on them, or at least that’s what the mind tells us. It’s a trip. 

The third piece, Epilogue, is in two parts and leaves behind mediated light’s mind-bending possibilities. Here there is an opposition of the elemental forces of dark and light.

The first part of Epilogue, Act 1 – Lament, starts with a mesmerising solo for Stefaan Morrow, who searches the space with strength and liquidity that bring to mind the properties of mercury. The control is immaculate. Then Rebecca Bassett Graham enters and the two become intimately intertwined in a sensual duo that combines strength and vulnerability in equal proportions. 

Stefaan Morrow and Rebecca Bassett Graham Photo © Jane Hobson

Bassett Graham is everywhere in Triptych and you can’t take your eyes off her. She unforgettably closes the show with the second part of Epilogue, the enigmatically titled Act 2. For the first time, Triptych’s monochrome palette is at the white end of the spectrum. Bassett Graham, starting and ending in stillness, disperses powder that lingers in the air like a memory. Is it too fanciful to see this as a kind of afterlife?

Triptych is full of wisps of ideas such as this. There are also fleeting suggestions, to these eyes at least, of people whose work and body are one and the same – dancers, of course, but also gymnasts, bodybuilders, showgirls. The synapses make a connection and then it’s gone. Gorgeous.

Major is disciplined enough to keep the work to just an hour in length. That degree of concentration, on his part likewise, concentrates the viewer’s mind wonderfully on Triptych’s sophistication and its highly deceptive simplicity. 

It’s often noted that Major was mentored by Canadian-born, UK-based choreographer Russell Maliphant and the link is undeniable. It would perhaps be better, though, to call Major an acolyte. There is so much reverence in the work; so much appreciation of the way light can alter perspectives and test the boundaries of time, space and gravity.

Major, who himself dances in the Unfolding section of Triptych after a long break due to injury, is currently having quite a run with Triptych in Australia and abroad. It’s abundantly clear why.

The Sydney season is short. You have been warned.

Triptych is at the Eternity Playhouse, Darlinghurst, Sydney, until 6 September.