Shaping the Landscape

Celebrating Dance in Australia

Stephanie Burridge, Julie Dyson

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000365757
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Dance

This, the fourth book in the series 'Celebrating Dance in Asia and the Pacific', explores the current dance scene in Australia from a wide perspective that mirrors the creative engagement of artists with Australian culture and the landscape. It looks at Indigenous dance, choreography beyond theatre, youth and community dance, Australian dancers' versatility and risk-taking. The comprehensive essays recount immigrant influences, the legacy of the Ballets Russes and Bodenwieser companies, dance on stage and screen, education and training and the story of Ausdance — the unique nation-wide voice and political advocacy organisation for dance.

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Shaping the Landscape

Jill Sykes

It may be a ‘new’ country in terms of European settlement, but Australia is believed to have the oldest form of continuously practised dance. It goes back at least 40,000 years as an integral part of the Indigenous culture and is still being passed on to the new generations. Most excitingly, it has also become the basis of contemporary styles for which the leading choreographers follow guidelines from the Indigenous elders as they strike out in fresh directions.

This is the only form of dance, old and new, that Australia can claim as its own. It has had a thrilling rise to mainstream appreciation in the past 35 years or so, and is considered so important that four contributors to this book have written about different aspects of its development.

Aboriginal dance had, of course, been noted by dance practitioners in theatre earlier. But inevitably, the creative team and performers were European and we look back on their well-meaning attempts with a shudder: in the 1950s, blackening and complete black costumes were acceptable in representing people with dark skins.

Times have changed and now Australia has highly trained dancers from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds who have a breadth of knowledge and experience that they can apply to the sophisticated demands of a company like Bangarra Dance Theatre.

Australia’s Indigenous dancers perform in well-known theatres around the country and overseas, and find their way to new audiences via new media as well. That cheeky version of Zorba’s Dance by the Chooky Dancers on YouTube was enjoyed by millions of people around the world and helped these Elcho Island performers from the Northern Territory to gain a commissioned work, Ngurrumilmarririyu (Wrong Skin), that was presented in 2010 at the Adelaide Festival and in the Sydney Opera House.

This broader exposure to forms of Indigenous performance — its humour as well as its serious dance and music from the past and present on pertinent, often social themes — has been reinforced by a parallel interest in Aboriginal art. As well as providing entertainment and stimulating ideas, it has been a bridge to discover more about their own country for many Australians.

With the exhilaration of developing a uniquely Australian dance, the traditions of dance as a performative theatre art form have not been forgotten. In fact, ballet is the mainstay of this country’s dance audience if the biggest, best-funded company with the largest following is taken as guide — and in that it is probably no different from other Western nations.

But in the second decade of the 21st century, Australia has many other styles of dance with robust support and practitioners. Most of them are covered in detail in this book. It is a vibrant dance scene with the promise of many organisations around the country getting young people to dance — not only encouraging them through performances that appeal to them but getting them to take part.

Australia’s national and international geographic isolation turns out to be something of an advantage to creativity. It is not like the national dance scene in some countries of Europe where a popular style produces clones. In this large continent, there are dozens of small groups responding to their communities creatively and independently. Though some shared influences may be spotted, one cannot pin down a wave of similarities. Australian dance is richly individualistic.

Small groups and independents are unshakeable in their devotion to dance and find ways of sharing it with others, no matter the financial pressures whereby funding favours the old over the new. The larger state and federally funded companies are constantly drawing on familiar narratives or creating new versions of tested favourites in a bid to hold on to their audiences. Commercial dance does well in Australia, with its profusion of musicals. Multicultural dance survives and sometimes thrives. Dance theatre and physical theatre are increasing in practice and popularity. Opportunities for disabled dancers are growing. Postmodern dance has all but disappeared. Hip-hop has its own following and is permeating performances of all kinds.

But to return to Australia’s biggest, flagship company — The Australian Ballet. Predictably, the best-seller amongst its 2010 programmes was a traditional production of The Nutcracker, brought in by artistic director David McAllister from the UK and beautifully performed by the company. The Silver Rose, its ‘new’ full-length ballet for the year, was just as ‘traditional’ in form and presentation, but it did have contemporary choreography in a classical style by Graeme Murphy, who made it in 2005 for the Bavarian State Ballet.

The Australian Ballet, which is building up to its 50th anniversary in 2012, selects work from overseas and local choreographers for its four main programmes touring some of the capital cities each year. Among those represented in recent years have been Nacho Duato and Wayne McGregor, as well as the company’s resident choreographer, Stephen Baynes. But the core of its audience looks to the past, so there is no surprise to find it commissioning a new Romeo and Juliet from Graeme Murphy and bringing back its legendary production of Don Quixote in 2011. This was the vehicle for Rudolf Nureyev as star performer and producer in 1970, with several seasons to follow and a film, co-starring Lucette Aldous as Kitri to Nureyev’s Basilio.

Lucette is a Perth resident these days and in 2010 she directed a production of Don Quixote for West Australian Ballet,

The Silver Rose (2010) choreographed by Graeme Murphy

Company: The Australian Ballet

(Photograph: David Kelly)

whose artistic director, Ivan Cavallari, judiciously mingles old and new — though his 2011 programme is bolder than most. It includes world premieres by two young Australian choreographers currently working overseas, Reed Luplau and David Jonathan, and a full-length Cinderella by one of their own dancers, Jayne Smeulders, as well as Australian premieres by Jiri Kylian and Garry Stewart.

Queensland Ballet’s artistic director, François Klaus, does most of the classical-based choreography himself. After celebrating the company’s 50th anniversary in 2010, he has planned a season of works that, apart from four performances of short works by guest choreographers, is based on themes that everyone will know — Carmen, The Little Mermaid and King Arthur — as well as Swan Lake, in which he keeps the traditional Act II.

But what if you are a classical dancer and want to explore contemporary approaches without spending time on the past? Since 2007, the Melbourne Ballet Company has been providing a creative outlet that seems to have taken hold in its home city, though it is yet to be seen beyond Melbourne. It is committed to new works within a comfortable framework of familiarity, predominantly by its resident choreographer Simon Hoy, but it has also gone into a collaboration that integrated live motion capture with 3D set to music by Mozart.

The Sydney Dance Company (SDC) headed off in a new direction when Rafael Bonachela took over as artistic director in 2009. Spanish-born Bonachela’s varied background built while working in London — Rambert Dance Company, choreography for Kylie Minogue, his own company — has brought fresh vitality to the SDC, new dancers and a range of guest choreographers such as Emanuel Gat and, in 2011, Jacopo Godani to complement his own works, which are stamped equally by his love of popular culture and the avant-garde.

In Adelaide, the Australian Dance Theatre had a similar spurt of action when Garry Stewart took over as artistic director in 2000. He has maintained his energy in making slow-release works of action-packed velocity that have been seen around the world. He is fascinated by technology and has had intriguing collaborations with New York photographer Lois Greenfield and Canadian robotics artist Louis-Philippe Demers. Also in Adelaide, Leigh Warren and Dancers perform in a quieter style that is at its best in a close-knit collaboration with live musical performance — ranging from the Philip Glass ‘Portrait Trilogy’ with the State Opera of South Australia and partnerships with smaller musical forces.

Australian audiences have always relished theatrical dance. The country’s collective love affair with the Ballets Russes, starting at the end of the 1930s, set a benchmark that has been maintained, even by the balletomanes. And for everyone else, it is getting to the point where you might wonder where theatre ends and dance begins and vice versa. The Belvoir, a Sydney theatre company, has scheduled in its 2011 season a work by choreographer Lucy Guerin, Human Interest Story, which explores the way we consume news.

Guerin has approached some topical and surprising subjects for her eponymous dance company, including the tragic collapse of a bridge being built in Melbourne nearly 30 years back, and an amusing and insightful exploration of dance training in Untrained. Her style involves more dance movement than another dance theatre practitioner, now director, Kate Champion, whose company Force Majeure weaves stories out of research and workshops in an organic development that is matched by the naturalistic style of movement. Her latest, Not in a Million Years, charts a series of extraordinary experiences by ordinary people.

Tess de Quincey, based in Sydney but performing nationally and internationally with the company that bears her name, has built a following for her ‘body weather’ style. It grew out of Japan’s butoh and was expanded in workshops undertaken in Australia’s parched interior to bring out contrasting aspects of performance, which are then intensified down to their engrossing essence for presentation in venues that are often out of the ordinary.

Kate Denborough and Gerard Van Dyck founded Kage Physical Theatre in 1997 in Melbourne, where they create powerfully theatrical shows through bold, everyday movement that verges on the acrobatic. Expressions Dance Company, in Brisbane, is primarily about dance, yet its repertoire always revolved around strong themes under its founder, Maggi Sietsma. Natalie Weir, who first choreographed for the company when she was 18, has brought her evolving international experience and commitment to the role of artistic director and pivotal choreographer.

Splintergroup is a flexible ensemble originally made up of Gavin Webber, Grayson Millwood and Vincent Crowley, who made their mark in the brilliant physical theatre work, lawn, where they amazed audiences as they walked up walls, scared us with surreal effects and made us laugh with very silly jokes. Splintergroup then toured Australia and overseas with roadkill, in which the intense physicality is even more pronounced. Webber and Millwood, as Animal Farm Collective, premiered Food Chain at the 2011 Sydney Festival.

From 2005 to 2009, Gavin Webber was also artistic director of Dancenorth, based in the far north Queensland city of Townsville. This small company, so distant from any of its peers, has been growing since 1985 as a professional contemporary dance company, initially directed by Cheryl Stock, and is currently under the direction of Raewyn Hill.

Legs on the Wall has created a world of its own. Its starting point in 1984 was acrobatic prowess as much as anything, but the group turned this ability into a tool for theatre that engrossed, astonished and moved audiences. At the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, they scaled a tall building and told a story at the same time, winning new fans in the streets below. Their influence, through the involvement of current and former performers, has reached out into straight theatre and even opera in a collaboration with Opera Australia. Their latest creation, premiered at the 2011 Sydney Festival, is an elaborate fantasy based on the Federation-era films of a troupe of Australian entertainers.

Stalker has a more circus-inclined approach to an idiosyncratic style of physical theatre that ranges from contemporary dance and martial arts, powered by a strong philosophical stance in its commitment to inclusion and reconciliation. It is often seen in unusual natural settings that enhance its individuality, and in 2010 celebrated its 21st year with the premiere of Shanghai Lady Killer at the Brisbane Festival. Stalker has an offshoot, Marrugeku, which is built on intercultural performance that brings together the lives of people and communities in the north-west of Australia. In 2009, it did a huge national tour of Burning Daylight, a work that was also documented as a book and a DVD, shot by Warwick Thornton of Samson and Delilah fame.

For something completely different, BalletLab works out of Melbourne under the direction of Phillip Adams, creating pieces that range from dance to installation, and does well overseas. In Adelaide, Restless Dance Theatre integrates young performers with and without disability. It has had notable success and has made a series of short pieces for the screen, including the award-winning Necessary Games — Necessity.

Many Australian choreographers put dance on screen. Some, like Sue Healey, work alone and in conjunction with stage presentations; others, like Narelle Benjamin and Sam James work as a team, with Benjamin also working independently for the stage, and Hellen Sky and Collaborators working with digital interactivity. Others concentrate on their screen work, such as Richard James Allen and Karen Pearlman with their Physical TV Company. Then there is Igneous, which made a hilarious short film of two men trying to read the same newspaper, Fragmentation, choreographed and directed by Suzon Fuks. ReelDance does a great job of getting Australian and New Zealand dance films together and showing them each year with a selection of overseas dance films and by touring with them, which gives a chance for people around the nation to see what others are doing in dance on-screen.

On the subject of technology, there is one Australian choreographer who has been obsessed by it for his stage presentations. In between works that make something special out of deeply ordinary themes — I Want to Dance Better at...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. Shaping the Landscape
• 2. Forging an Identity: Transformation and Synthesis in Twentieth Century Australian Dance
• 3. Connecting Through Dance and Story
• 4. Awakening the Spirit: Telling the Stories
• 5. Contemporary Indigenous Dance: The Importance of NAISDA
• 6. Treading the Pathways: Independent Indigenous Dance
• 7. Different Inflections
• 8. Knowledge, Experience and a Dash of Rebellion: Dance Training in Australia
• 9. Generations Dancing
• 10. Dancers on a Precipice
• 11. Together in Isolation: New Moves Across Time and Place
• 12. Connecting the Voices: The Story of Ausdance
• 13. Looking for the Dance: Other Spaces, Different Times
• Artists’ Voices and Biographies
• Index