By Rain Francis.

Arts Centre, Melbourne
February 2012

The Australian Ballet’s 50th Anniversary celebrations have begun with a big, beautiful bang. Infinity is a triple bill of new works created by three of Australia’s most important choreographers, to three commissioned scores.

The evening opens with The Narrative of Nothing, from Australia’s beloved Graeme Murphy. After creating a string of lavish story ballets, including 2011′s Romeo and Juliet, Murphy opted out of the constraints of expressing a narrative, returning to a more neoclassical, purely abstract form. During the creative process, however, he found it impossible to NOT find meaning in the steps being constructed, eventually coming to the conclusion that as humans we need – have always needed – stories. The resulting ballet is a 30 minute exhibition of formidable technique, not necessarily always virtuosic in the sense of being grand and showy, but intricate, flawlessly executed and at times lightning-quick. As Murphy noted, in the various groupings of dancers, the audience is free to find its fictions and fantasies.

The Narrative of Nothing is set to Brett Dean’s Fire Music, dedicated to the victims of the 2009 ‘Black Saturday’ bushfires. Powerful in scope and elaborately detailed, the score is expertly rendered by the choreography. The dancers are dressed in unitards which are covered in minute mirrors – an innovative design of Murphy’s long-time collaborator, Jennifer Irwin.

Unexpectedly, the most traditional classical ballet choreography and costumes of the evening are to be found within a piece by one of our most eminent contemporary choreographers. There’s Definitely a Prince Involved is Gideon Obarzanek’s first major work since departing Chunky Move. It asks questions such as ‘what is ballet?’ and ‘what is love?’, drawing on answers collected by Obarzanek when conducting interviews as part of his research. Swan Lake, as the quintessential ballet, is deconstructed and given a realist’s revamp, shot through with candid, sometimes amusing, often nerve-touching narration. Created alongside the choreography, Stefan Gregory’s score manipulates Tchaikovsky’s famous original, thankfully retaining its faultless essence.

The show-stealer of the second work is easily the contemporary Grand Pas de Deux, narrated by Madeleine Eastoe and danced by guest artists Sara Black and James O’Hara. The two bodies writhe and tumble with invertebrate fluidity, reminiscent of the fabulous dressmaker’s dummy in Dame Peggy van Praagh and George Ogilvie’s production of Coppelia.

For me, the piece de resistance of the evening is Stephen Page’s mesmerising Warumuk – In the Dark Night. Inspired by Yolngu families’ creation stories of the night sky, the work explores the ‘spiritual relationship between people, land and nature’. Various myths are interpreted, including those of the Milky Way, the lunar eclipse and the morning star. Dancers from Bangarra Dance Theatre and The Australian Ballet blend seamlessly, the latter embracing a more weighted movement vocabulary. Throughout, the combination of the dance, David Page’s score and Padraig O Suilleabhain’s lighting is nothing short of hypnotic, but it is Jennifer Irwin’s breathtaking costumes which blow my mind, particularly in the dance of the Seven Sisters.

Infinity is a well-balanced cross-section of the Australian dance palette. It incorporates various traditions and our unique Indigenous culture, whilst nodding to the new directions of our choreographers. Here’s to the next 50 years.

Photo: Graeme Murphy, Lana Jones, Gideon Obarzanek, Stephen Page. Photo Georges Antoni

Published by Dance Informa dance magazine – everything dance in Australia – dance news, dance auditions & dance events.

City Recital Hall, Angel Place
January 2012
As part of Sydney Festival

By Elizabeth Ashley. 

Chunky Move with Artistic Director Gideon Obarzanek participated in the Sydney Festival 2012 with Assembly – a work exploring the dynamics of crowds in everyday life. Obarzanek’s fascination with ‘spatial and moving patterns’ is creatively worked through on a set of steep stairs, mirroring the sloped seating of the watching audience so that we come face to face with the facets and behaviour of various crowds.

While crowds in their various shapes and forms may be an unavoidable part of modern life, Obarzanek reminds us of their intricacies, uniqueness and creative force. Assembly, as the name of the work, reflects the vision to assemble something en masse that transcends our individuality. Obarzanek’s assembly of various dancers and choristers, integrating voices and movement into a harmonious whole is the highlight of this work.

Dancers from Chunky Move collaborate with singers from the Sydney Philharmonia choirs to explore the way a crowd affects individuals as well as creating a life of its own.

Unexpectedly and refreshingly, Obarzanek does not delineate the dancers from the singers – the variety of ages, body types and ways of moving endears the audience to this ‘crowd’ and somehow includes us in the process.

As 60 performers climb the stairway, set to take their opening position, a question is nagging – “But where will the dancers dance?” Then they all start talking loudly, gesticulating as if they were all telling you their life story. It’s not until the mass separates and walks purposely in intricate and highly structured patterns up and down and across the structure that we realise the dancers are lost in the anonymity of the crowd.

Seamless integration of voice and body allows Assembly to explore the many types of crowds in modern life, from raucous football games to audience participation, to queuing, trend-following and the alienation of cityscape bustling. In this work the standout performance is no particular individual but the group entity itself.

The space is well-used and has the ability to show the depth and shape of crowds. We see the ebb and flow, creating an almost 3D effect. We no longer see the crowd as a chaotic mess but rather as one mass, constantly forming and reforming patterns as the individuals interact and disperse – an embodiment of a creative entity that is greater than the sum of its parts.

The choir must be applauded for their absolute commitment to their roles not as singers but as performers, executing phase-shifting sequences as well as rolling and slithering head-first down the stairs. Equally, the Chunky Move dancers handle the challenges of shoulder rolls and pas de deux sequences on a stairway with skilled control as well as performing percussive and resonating falls due to the pushing and shoving nature of crowds.

The combination of mass bodies in motion with voices singing in unison is a masterstroke of creative envisioning, allowing the work to capture the contradictory experience of the crowd or assembly.  The anonymity and earthbound nature of the dancing bodies is contrasted with the ethereal quality of the voices that suggest a juxtaposition of mind/matter and subjection/transcendence, as well as the themes of fragmentation and wholeness.

Assembly is an uplifting and refreshing collaboration that engages the audience, elicits laughter, spontaneous applause and recognition. Echoing a review from The Age, Assembly is “meditative, mesmerising and existential”, and extremely rewarding.

Photo by Jeff Busby.

Melbourne International Arts Festival
Melbourne Recital Centre
October 2011

By Grace Edwards

Chunky Move’s Assembly is Artistic Director Gideon Obarzanek’s final work with the company. Produced in collaboration with the Victorian Opera, it is in one a study in the motion of crowds, a salute to the collaborative possibilities of the age-old partnership between music and dance, and a swan song for Obarzanek which marks the end of a triumphant fifteen-year era in the history of Victorian contemporary dance.

The scale of the work reflected the occasion, featuring over sixty singers and dancers performing on a giant staircase set up on the stage of the Melbourne Recital Centre. The choice of music accompanying this experiment appeared surprising. Rather than a contemporary soundscape, Assembly offered its audience a selection of unaccompanied vocal works from the plainchant of the Middle Ages to the music of late Renaissance composers Carlo Gesualdo and Tomas Luis de Victoria. The choice reflected Obarzanek’s desire to work with nothing but pure vocal sound and movement, devoid of technical special effects or wizardry.

Opening on a staircase filled with performers, the crowd launched into a million discussions, creating a wall of sound above which no individual conversations could be heard. This is the anonymity of the crowd, at once comforting and frustrating. The performers underwent a number of subsequent permutations, from navigating past each other’s bodies like pedestrians to performing simply movements in unison.

Whilst these sequences were interesting in their own right, they did not ultimately transcend their original context. There is a fine line between art through emulation and simple imitation; at times, the crowd sequences appeared to veer towards the latter, with rather literal presentations of a football shouting match, dozens of individuals talking at once, moving past each other as if walking on the street. Indeed, part of the magic of crowds is their spontaneity; the reason why people-watching can be so fascinating. Simply transferring such experiences to the stage stripped these moments of their interest whilst offering little as replacement. 

The length of the opening also foreshadowed what would prove to be the generally static pace of this work. Lacking a sense of progression towards any sort of climax, Assembly remained somewhat cold and abstracted throughout on more than one occasion, causing one to wonder where it was all leading.

Performers Harriet Ritchie and Sara Black were, as always it seems, standouts – dynamic agents amidst the throng of performers, throwing themselves across the merciless staircase with abandon whilst maintaining masterful control of their bodies. As an ensemble, the dancers impressed with their dynamism and commitment to the work. The singers were equally impressive in their vocal clarity, their voice projecting beautifully across the auditorium amidst the sounds of movement onstage.

The most interesting sequence was that in which the crowd followed individual performers to the furthest points of the set, flocking like sheep to engulf those who dared stand out. The music echoed this theme at many points in the work with a single voice piercing the auditorium before being subsumed by other voices in a beautiful wall of sound. These aspects perhaps lit a path towards a more transformative approach to crowd behavior.

Whilst this was not Chunky Move’s strongest work of recent years, the risk-taking, collaborative approach of Assembly makes it a fitting tribute to Obarzanek; a contemporary dance icon who has consistently stayed one step ahead of the crowd.

Photo: Assembly in rehearsal. Photo by Jeff Busby

The 2011 Melbourne International Arts Festival brings dance, theatre, art, opera and film to Melbourne from October 6 to 22. A truly international Festival, it features major presentations by visiting artists from countries including Russia, India, Sudan, Indonesia, Japan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, the People’s Republic of China, Iraq, Lithuania, Ireland, South Africa, Israel, Syria and Ukraine.

The Festival examines what it is that unites us across cultures, and includes works that celebrate what can be achieved through unity, through call-to-action, through protest and politics, and through assembly of peoples.

“This year’s program is the most pan-cultural I’ve had the privilege to direct, and celebrates the ‘live’ experience,” says Artistic Director, Brett Sheehy.

Chunky Move, Assembly. Photo by Jeff Busby

This year’s festival includes six unique dance works, including the world premiere of Assembly by Chunky Move and the Victorian Opera.  One of our greatest choreographers, Gideon Obarzanek, presents his final work as head of Chunky Move in an ambitious collaboration with Victorian Opera. Devised by Obarzanek in partnership with Victorian Opera Music Director Richard Gill, Assembly investigates the enigmatic motion of crowds. Integrating dance with theatrical and operatic performance, this grand piece involves over sixty performers on stage, with the entire cast choreographed into an awesome mixture of movement and voice.

Phillip Adams also presents a world premiere with Aviary, A Suite for the Bird with his company BalletLab. A fusion of feathers, flight and fantasy, Aviary imagines a jungle paradise of exotic birds, brought to life by BalletLab Artistic Director Phillip Adams, who both directs and performs, with six exquisite dancers. Costumes are by acclaimed Australian fashion designer Toni Maticevski, with plumage designed by iconic Melbourne milliner Richard Nylon.

Political Mother. Photo by Gabriele Zucca

After his astonishing Australian debut at the 2009 Festival, the much feted Hofesh Shechter returns with his first full-length work, the critically acclaimed Political Mother.  A powerhouse performance that meshes traditional Jewish folk dance with a jackbooted live soundtrack of military drums and electric guitars, Political Mother finds Shechter at his most innovative and impassioned. Over the course of 70 minutes, Shechter’s dancers lurch through the authoritarian nightmares of recent human history.

In an Australian premiere, Jecko Siompo and Jecko’s Dance present We Came from the East. First you hear the noises, a cacophonous array of yelps emerging from the blackness. And then the bodies appear, contorted and animalistic, folded backwards and leaping toward the ceiling with bestial vigour. It’s a long way from breakdancing, yet it seems so familiar.  Could it be true? Could hip-hop really have come from Indonesia? This is the question mischievously posed by Jecko Siompo in We Came from the East. Siompo conjures up a furious display of the apparently indelible links between traditional Papuan dance and contemporary hip-hop.

Arts House and Force Majeure present Double Think

Arts House and Force Majeure present Double Think. Critically acclaimed Australian dancer, director and choreographer, Byron Perry explores the concept of a performance work in constant flux in his second full-length dance work Double Think. A rhetorical examination of the illusion of opposition, Double Think creates a constantly evolving landscape of relativity – a place where actions and statements serve double functions and characters create and derail trains of thought simultaneously. One tall man and one short woman make imperfect sense as they shed some dark on a light subject in a complex world of simple objects.

In a fun addition to the dance program, Strut & Fret will present Tom Tom Crew who smash together acrobatics, hip-hop and percussion to create an entertaining, adrenaline-fuelled circus show for the 21st century. From the first bass drum kick to the hair-raising, acrobatic finale, the Tom Tom Crew deliver a show that grabs you and doesn’t let go. The pulsing energy of hip-hop meets the raw physicality of acrobatics in an astounding mash-up of gravity-defying manoeuvres, astonishing beat-boxing and breakdancing, improbable contortion and energetic drumming.

To get your tickets and find out more visit www.melbournefestival.com.au

Top photo: Aviary by BalletLab

Spring Dance
Sydney Opera House – Studio
August 27

By Dolce Fisher

Well I liked ‘I Like This’!

Chunky Move’s new work is a perfect example of what can be created when two people brainstorm a brilliant concept and work to see it come to life. ‘I Like This’ was shaped around the creative process behind choreography. Stripped bare from the technology that us audiences have grown so used to, it is actually the simplicity of the work what makes it so different. There are no ‘costumes’, just some hand held lights, a few chairs and a sound system. ‘I Like This’ proves that you don’t need a big budget to create ground breaking new work.

The artists’ theatrical performances must be commended, showing their full talent as artists rather than just dancers. Choreographers/performers Antony Hamilton and Byron Perry highlighted so many different elements of the choreographic process and executed them with humour and a little mischief.

The show has been impeccably rehearsed. The timing of the all the positioning and the lighting required perfection and this couldn’t be faulted throughout the performance.

There is a great rebound effect created with dialogue shared throughout, from the choreographers, dancers and audience.  The audience are included in the process, almost making it feel interactive.

This work is definitely more suited to an audience of other dancers/performers, as we instantly resonate with the creative process and understand the humour behind it. However, if you take a non-dancer friend along with you they’ll still have a laugh and enjoy the show. Go and see ‘I Like This’. I hope you like it too!

Parramatta Riverside Theatre
August 2011

By Lynne Lancaster

This excellent work is tantalising and enthralling. Unfortunately at the show I attended we only saw a segmented, abridged version as one of the dancers was injured. However, based on what we saw it is a sensational, fluid, sculptural work that takes as its base the idea of being connected within relationships, of the search for soul mates and intuition. The dancers explore the concept of Yin/Yang, male/female separate yet entwined, linked and reflecting each other.

The professional dance partnership between Griffiths and Bary positively glows. You can almost touch it as a third performer, crackling with intimacy. Both dancers have worked with Chunky Move, Leigh Warren and Dancers and Tasdance, among other companies, as well as with the late lamented Tanja Liedtke. Early on in their performing careers their close physical and mental partnership was observed by various choreographers, and this was the springboard for their creative work. As mentioned in the program notes, they have challenged themselves to develop their ”intricate duet and unison work” by dancing virtually as one, building on ideas such as ”soul mates” and ”sharing different heartbeats in one life”. This is their first work as co- choreographers and performers. Side To One has been in development since 2006 with the backing of skilled mentors behind it, and this shows. 

There is a wonderful extended opening duet where the dancers are caught in an extra-large oversized stretchy polo neck jumper. It is sometimes enfolding and comforting, and at other times used as a basis for precarious balance.

The Orbazanek/Chunky Move style of integrating wonderful computer images, technology and music with dance is heavily evident. Adam Synott’s powerful pulsating score hums and sizzles, echoing and melding with the choreography. I enjoyed the way dots and stars of the opening sequence merged into shapes like that of entwined dancers.

Most of the time there is a heavy, weighted feel to the choreography and a possible Graham influence. Sometimes it is more playful in mood, or electric and intense. When the two dancers move in unison there is a creamy, sculptural and intimate feel that is contrasted with smooth yet angular and twisted ‘chewy’ (as Griffith describes it) choreography.

The stage is mostly bare apart from the huge light box shaped like an L that the dancers clamber around, stand on, hang off, and in one section dance inside creating some marvellous, soft focus, blurry dreamlike visuals. Towards the end Griffiths luxuriously floats in strong eerie shadows while Bary manipulates her, and is manipulated by her, in a dreamlike sequence full of repetitive mirroring choreographic phrases.

What a small golden gem of a show. I anxiously await a return season.

Photo: by Chris Herzfeld

23 August – 4 September 2011

2011 will mark the third year of Sydney Opera House’s Spring Dance – Australia’s only international, contemporary dance festival. Curated by Wendy Martin, highlights of the festival will include a world premiere from Lloyd Newson’s UK-based company DV8, the first ever Sydney performance by Alain Platel’s acclaimed les ballets C de la B from Belgium and Spain’s avant-garde flamenco artist Israel Galvan who will perform in Australia for the first time.

This year Spring Dance will be dedicated to the legacy of Pina Bausch, one of the most influential and innovative choreographers of the twentieth century. Martin said, ‘By showcasing the work of choreographers Lloyd Newson and Alain Platel, we will bring together two artists who cite the enormous influence Bausch has had on their work. This seems like the perfect springboard to explore the influence this iconic dance maker has had on the landscape of contemporary Australian dance.’ A series of films and discussions will look at the singular vision of Pina Bausch and her Tanztheater Wuppertal.

Artwork - Ros Warby, Monumental, photo: L. Tomasetti; les ballets C de la B, Out of Context – for Pina, photo: C. Van Der Burght

In 2011 Spring Dance will take over the Western Foyers with performances in the Drama Theatre, Studio and Playhouse and a series of talks, masterclasses and exhibitions in the Western Foyer and precinct.

Sydney Opera House will host the world premiere of DV8’s, Can we talk about this? choreographed and devised by Artistic Director Lloyd Newson. Like his recent productions that have combined dance with verbatim theatre to tackle social and political issues head-on, Can we talk about this? will explore ideas around freedom of speech.

Alain Platel’s company, les ballets C de la B, will present the award-winning production Out of Context: For Pina. For its first Sydney season, it will include a ‘Pina Intervention’ by acclaimed Australian choreographer Meryl Tankard who was a star of Pina Bausch’s company in the late 70’s and early 80’s.

Israel Galvan, the daringly innovative Flamenco artist from Seville will come to Sydney Opera House with the Australian premiere of his award-winning production Le Edad de Oro which uses the techniques and artistry of Flamenco while building on tradition to create a new, pared-back aesthetic for the genre.

Chunky Move returns to Spring Dance with I Like This – a witty and irreverent take on the making of a dance piece, created by two of Australia’s finest contemporary dancers and emerging choreographers, Byron Perry and Antony Hamilton.

The work of Melbourne-based dancer and choreographer Ros Warby has been acclaimed by critics around the world. She will return to Sydney to perform the award-winning Monumental at Spring Dance, in which she explores ideas around two iconic symbols of classical ballet: the swan and the soldier.

And for younger audiences, Sydney Opera House will present The Forest by the UK-based performance company Fevered Sleep. The Forest will reflect their interest in creating design-focused productions that develop theatrical environments to envelop their audience and draw them into a world of fantasy, intrigue, movement and storytelling.

This year’s Spring Dance festival will offer the rare opportunity to be taught by some of the world’s great dancers and choreographers with 6 master classes on offer. There will be a series of panel discussions, hosted by Caroline Baum, with prominent dancers and choreographers looking at Pina Bausch and her legacy. They will be accompanied by a program of film screenings.

Top photo:  Ros Warby – Monumental, Photo: Lisa Tommasetti

The rise of the machine on stage

By Elizabeth Ashley

A pas-de-deux with a strange responsive motion-sensing machine. Dancing with a shadow that responds and moves in its own time. Moving through a forest of strobe lights.Performing with 240 volts strapped to your body. What is it like dancing on a stage where the other most important component is a sensitive and responsive….machine?

These possibilities make the stage an increasingly magical and illusory place.  Technology changes the way audiences view dance, the way the artistic director conceives the performance space, and of course how the dancers dance. And as technology develops it in turn challenges dance to use and incorporate its capacities into the artistic vision.

Melbourne-based Chunky Move is one contemporary dance company fascinated by developments on the technological frontier.  Two of their famous works, Glow and Mortal Engine, incorporate a high technological component. Collaborating with technologist Frieder Weiss, these works challenge our conception regarding emotional and spatial relationships within dance. 

Connected by Chunky Move. Photo Jeff Busby

The company’s recent world premiere of their new work Connected also explores the use of technology on the stage. Connected, to be performed next in Sydney this May is a collaboration with the talents of American kinetic sculptor Reuben Margolin where the dancers perform with his suspended mechanised sculpture. The dancers build their performance while constructing the vast sculpture in real time, beginning with simple movements and hundreds of tiny pieces. Over time these basic elements and simple physical connections quickly evolve into highly sophisticated structures and complex relationships.

Artistic director Gideon Obarzanek states that working with technology means his “choreography has focused [...] more on abstract and imagistic ideas.” He is quoted as saying, “I use technology to create impressions of other layers we cannot see but which we feel…”^[1]

So what is it like to dance with a machine? I spoke with dancer Kristy Ayre who has been with Chunky Move since 2002 and was integrally involved with the creation of Glow, working with Gideon Obarzanek and Frieder Weiss.

Before Glow had you performed a work that included technology as an equal partner?
I had performed Lucy Guerin’s Melt which used video projection. But technology has been used in contemporary dance for many, many years…it just seems that people are more aware of it now and Glow certainly took it to a different level.

What was your first impression regarding the idea of dancing with a work involving a large and dynamic technological component?
So excited! Working with Frieder was exciting and it was so magical…felt like I was 5 years old because you play with it (the technology).

You dance with it but does it dance with you?
YES! Normally you don’t get that type of marriage. It was a total pas de deux.

What is the emotional dynamic of dancing with an inanimate object?
We had six weeks to make Glow with Frieda and I remember being driven emotionally by the physicality and the sound which is just amazing…and the system. It all contributes.

The performance appears as emotionally exhausting as it is physically exhausting. Where do you find the emotion in Glow?
It’s a journey without a narrative but there is a physical evolution and the physical exhaustion generates emotion. It was designed to be performed in an intimate environment and is best performed in a steep, close performance space so that you feel the energy from an external source, from the audience.

What attitudinal and technical qualities do dancers need to bring to perform well with technology?Awareness and consciousness. It feels like another strong component.

Where do you as a lone dancer find the timing?
There are certain cues but I’ve been dancing Glow for years so I start and it varies depending on the night. There is a certain level of freedom within constraints but it unfolds and I move through the six scenes.

Can you remember how you felt at the end of your first performance of Glow?
Exhilarated! Due to injuries I had been pulled from the opening show (August 2006). I basically had a broken leg and I just kept trying to do it. Gideon eventually had to tell me to stop. So my first performance of Glow wasn’t until November 2006 when we performed it in Poland. It was very emotional as this was Gideon’s home country and I was back after injuries. When I finished I felt fabulous and like it was a triumph for me. It’s such a special piece to perform and I never tire of it.

See Connected by Chunky move
10-14 May
Sydney Theatre ,Walsh Bay
www.chunkymove.com.au

^[1] Obarzanek, G., ‘Glow’, SEAM Agency and Action Symposium 2010, Oct 15,16, 2010, p.15.

Chunky Move Studios, Southbank, Melbourne.
3^rd September

By Rebecca Martin.

Gideon Obarzanek’s Chunky Move presented its third production for The Next Move, which is a series of performances by up and coming Australian dance makers.  On this occasion, Stephanie Lake directed and choreographed Mix Tape – a piece about love.  Utilising songs and recorded interviews, and performed at Chunky Move’s own performance space in Southbank, Mix Tape was a very personal affair that explored the divergent emotions and experiences uncovered under the auspices of romantic love.

The blip of an old tape deck signalled the beginning of the audience’s journey, and as it sat perched on a bookshelf at the back of the stage, the four dancers (Sara Black, Rennie McDougall, Timothy Ohl, and Jorijn Vriesendorp) grabbed our attention by stamping their way barefoot into the space.   Stephanie Lake’s frenetic, nuanced, and challenging choreography suited the dancers who quite literally threw themselves into the work, and traversed the stage with great intensity and strength. 

Through the recorded interviews, we glimpsed the humorous side of love which helped ensure the piece didn’t get bogged down in the usual clichés associated with the subject matter.  Lake treated the topic with sensitivity and a fresh perspective, and the piece was saved by ingenuity rather than falling prey to the familiar tune of the theme. 

The use of songs allowed the piece to say a lot more than it could have with dance alone, and a highlight was Bob Dylan’s Shelter From The Storm which was the soundtrack to an excellent piece that saw the dancers wrap, unwrap, and weave in and out of rolls of paper as tall as they were.  Sometimes the paper brought them together, and sometimes it tore them apart, much like the theme of love. 

Mix Tape closed with a tempestuous storm which was a not so subtle metaphor for the difficulties of love, and it showed the dancers attempting to weather the storm before they were unfortunately beaten.  The frenzied finale which had the dancers tormented by their losses showed us that love doesn’t always last, but it is one hell of a ride.

Public classes are now very much part of the new dance democracy in Australia and Chunky Move are still at the cutting edge.

By Paul Ransom.

So, you think you can dance? Well, you probably can.

Me, I’m what a dance trained friend of mine calls a ‘lower case’ dancer. That’s dance, not Dance. However, my optimistic ineptitude did not preclude me from attending public classes with Melbourne based contemporary superstars Chunky Move.

In this world of tabloid TV dance-offs the Upper Case Dance world has flung open its doors to goofy footed fools like me. Indeed, public classes are now almost de rigueur for the once aloof dance companies of Australia. Is this the democratisation of dance? 

“Dance shouldn’t be exclusive or alienate people,” proclaims Kristy Ayres from the aforementioned Chunky Move. “If anything, it should be something that unlocks people’s inhibitions.”

Some people might find this assertion strange coming from a company that has carved a global niche for its technically exquisite, often avant garde works. However, those same people should bear in mind that Chunky Move started doing public classes eight years ago, long before they were the vogue.

“The way that the community has grown around the company and extended through this programme really stands out to me,” Ayres adds. “It’s helping to educate and excite people about contemporary dance, about the company and also to get the idea out there that this is accessible to everyone.”

As if to underscore this, Chunky have now added a hip hop stream to their weekly schedule of ‘drop in’ classes. “Some people are just into the vibe of wanting to put their trainers on, turn on some slamming RnB and muck around.” 

And that, of course, is the point. Public classes are not so much about talent scouting and certificate courses but the fun and fitness of movement. Yes, my Thursday night contemporary class was routinely filled with obviously trained young girls, (not such an awful thing in my view), but my fumbling approximations were not the subject of scorn or exclusion, (at least as far as I could tell).

Having said that; it’s not exactly amateur hour. Indeed, one group of long term Chunky students have been inspired enough to start their own company. As Kristy Ayres proudly notes, “They’re just about to apply for funding because they want to start making some of their own independent work. That’s an amazing outcome and it really inspires me to stay involved in the programme.”

What public classes also provide companies like Chunky Move and dancers like Ayres is not only another income stream but an invaluable connect point with potential audiences. “It’s like a viral infection,” she says. “It gives people a different way into the contemporary dance world “

In recent years the big ‘way in’ has been the explosion of dance TV. People who would never dream of attending a Chunky Move show routinely devour small screen choreography.

“Even though my taste isn’t within the realm of something like Dancing With The Stars I would never discourage it because anything that is going to promote the form, get it into the public’s attention and parallel it along with sport in this country is fantastic,” Kristy Ayres enthusiastically concludes.

After all, as the Chunky Move promo postcard says, ‘there’s a dancer in all of us’.

www.chunkymove.com

Article published by www.danceinforma.com