Design and music in the hands of choreographer Raewyn Hill and composer Eden Mulholland is the fundamental core of Co3 Contemporary Dance Company. Together with dynamic dramaturg Richard Longbottom, lighting designer Mark Haslam, set designer Bruce McKinven and costume associates Bec Simpkins and Nora Stelter, they have spun a phenomenal work which connects with the audience through explosive energy, retrospection, and a superb soundscape, which begins like the beating of an embryo’s heart. This rhythmic heart-beat persists through a soaring tapestry of sections of Vivaldi’s visceral Gloria in D Major.

Archives of Humanity. Photograph © Chris Symes

Designed, devised and directed by Hill, Archives of Humanity had its world premiere at Perth Festival. Visually it was akin to seeing figures in the Old Masters, with their glow of slanted light, escape from their canvas. Although Hill asked her dancers to respond to works by Caravaggio it was redolent not only of him, but of the myriad sacred works depicting the mystifying beauty and pain of Christ’s crucifixion and his adoration. In one of the many memorable sequences, two lines of dancers parted to reveal a pale girl in white, hands together and outstretched...