As acclaimed choreographers and artistic directors of the Sydney Dance Company, Bangarra Dance Theatre and Chunky Move respectively, Graeme Murphy, Stephen Page and Gideon Obarzanek have done nothing less than irrevocably change the face of dance in Australia.
To kick off its 50th year, the Australian Ballet has brought these three unique talents together to create a triple hit of new works.
We spoke to Murphy, Page and Obarzanek about...
... their work in the Infinity programme.
Gideon Obarzanek: I interviewed a number of people about their experience with ballet. Most had little knowledge or experience, but when asked if they knew of any ballets most replied, "Swan Lake". I then asked them to tell me the story of this romantic ballet and got some very confused but fascinating versions. The title, ‘There’s Definitely a Prince Involved’, is a quote from one of my pondering interviewees.
Ardent admirers rarely query ballet’s unique conventions – we take them as a matter of course – and yet they are often baffling to the uninitiated. I’m interested in this unique relationship between storytelling, emotive and expressive dance, and more abstract virtuosic dance spectacle. It’s an odd cocktail but when the measures are right it works spectacularly well.
Stephen Page: I’ve been fascinated with northeast Arnhem Land and its creation stories for a very long time, and it’s been a huge part of Bangarra’s repertoire. ‘Warumuk’ means the illusion in the dark night – especially when you look up to the galaxy. It’s really about one’s own personal connection with the night sky and what they see and what they create.
We were inspired by the Milky Way, the Saucepan [Orion’s belt and sword] the Seven Sisters creation story, Greek mythology and stories from the Yolngu perspective.
Graeme Murphy: ‘The Narrative of Nothing’ was a natural progression from having done a number of blockbuster narratives in quick succession. I love storytelling in dance but sometimes you just want to get back to the lovely, barebones, naked truth of dance.
I must say, I usually alternate between narrative and abstract works because it cleanses the palate in a way. I hadn’t done an abstract work for a while, so it was just great to get in the studio and just have raw energy and powerful music and not have to think about telling a story.
The irony, of course, is that there is always some subliminal narrative that creeps in. Audiences probably look at this work and start conjuring their own little stories. It’s hard to abstract the human body. Every person’s got a story.
... what single word they'd use to describe their piece.
GO: Droll.
SP: Haunting. Not in the ghost story way. As a spiritual experience. There’s a few words for you.
GM: Honest.
... their specially commissioned scores.
GO: The music is a combination of pieces from Tchaikovsky’s original
Swan Lake and new compositions by
Stefan Gregory. With the original music we mostly perform traditional ballet and discuss the story and structure of
Swan Lake. With Stefan’s sometimes ominous and always moody drones we perform much more contemporary dance and discuss more personal and real experiences of love. Stefan’s music is like a suspension within the original score. It acts as a space in between to show other things.
SP: We recorded traditional songs sung by two male singers and filtered those through the score. Those traditional songs set the feeling of the piece melodically and rhythmically.
GM: I said to [composer Brett Dean], "Write what you want to write. Don’t think about it, don’t even think about it being for a ballet. Just write a piece of music that you’re ready to write."
Interestingly, he wanted to have a departure point. His departure point was the Victoria bushfires, because sometimes you need some little clue before you start to set things going. He really researched – even the physics of fire. That was really great for him but he was quite generous in saying, "Look, you know, you don’t have to adhere to my narrative." I guess everyone needs their own narratives but, at the end of the day, my job was to try to eliminate them.
... how they spend their first day in the rehearsal room.
GO: I talk a lot! I want to explain my fragments for ideas to the dancers and also get some feedback about their thoughts. I must confess that I also talk a lot because I’m nervous and unsure of exactly how to start. After an hour I usually run out of things to say and realise we still have another six hours to go.
SP: For me, the first day is just telling stories and getting everyone in a circle and making sure the cast know each other. We try to build a spiritual chemistry between them and make them aware. You try to stimulate the spirit behind the story to help shape the movement.
GM: You just have to bite the bullet and go, 'Okay, the first step is…" And you don’t know what the first step is until you’ve done it. Somehow that is the key that you continue on.
And that first step can be the wrong one. I’ve done that and had to throw out ballets a week after I’ve started because the first step was wrong. But if you look to the dancers, and I always look to the dancers for my inspiration because I think that within each dancer there is something fabulous to explore, their talent will actually drive the work.
A lot of people ask, ‘Do you go in with a whole batch of steps ready?’ I’ve never been up to that. I have to see the whites of their eyes before I do my first step. I have to feel like that terrified rabbit in the spotlight moment and then start working. Finding their language is such a lovely process, finding something that challenges them but at the same time comes from within them so you’re not just imposing alien steps on their bodies.
... the most important advice they give their dancers.
GO: Don’t do the "I’m a professional dancer" thing, the "I am on top of it, I know what I am doing" kind of attitude on stage. I can’t stand it. It shuts the audience down from any possible sense of empathy. Dancers need to be thinking, questioning and trying when performing… They should leave themselves open.
I also have little patience for thoughtless smiles and meaningless frowns.
SP: Listen to the story and surrender your energy. Trust yourself through the process. Dive in to the deep water with it.
GM: Think of the architecture of the work and the big building blocks. They’re the things you’ve been trained technically to achieve – these incredibly difficult big statements. Now look at how you link them. Find a beautiful way. Don’t throw away those in-between steps, because if you get the grammar of that right then your statements will be clear and crystal.
Then I think the most important thing is to now invest yourself in this choreography. Stop looking at it as something that is static. It’s something that will grow the more you give it. Fertilise it, I say.
... what inspires, delights, surprises them about working with the dancers of the Australian Ballet.
GO: I was delighted and inspired by how most of the dancers I worked with embraced new challenges and ideas. Working with Chunky Move requires a capacity to consider dance performance from other perspectives and also a level of trust and respect in me as a director and choreographer. Despite a small few not sharing these values, I think we achieved an extraordinarily unique and special work.
SP: They’re professional athletes. They’ve been doing this stuff since they were young. That side of the discipline and the physicality is astonishing. They need the precision to be there because a lot of their traditional repertoire requires that attention, that focus of the body, the mind and the spirit. I’m amazed by that discipline so when you do come in there with them, they’re hungry to learn other experiences in contemporary dance form. I’m amazed how hungry and eager they are as a company.
GM: The familiarity. The fact that there is history there for me.
I was in the company, I got my first choreographic chances within the company and I’ve continued to do work for them. Sometimes only a couple in a decade, other times major works that involved me being with them for a long time. In the last six or seven years it’s almost been my home.
What inspires me about that is that you get to know the dancers. You know the newest members and you know the most established principals and you have that really amazing palette.
When I started freelance choreography, one of the hardest things was that you walk through the door and have to pick your cast in the first two days. And you’re doing it on a very superficial level, you don’t know their characters, you don’t know how you’ll work with them, you’re looking at them as technical beings and not as creative tools. Whereas, in this company, I’m delighting in the fact that there are so many dancers that really have got a handle on my style of choreography and, more importantly, they’re at a point of having something to say. In ‘The Narrative of Nothing’, I’ve used the whole depth of the company. It’s been beautiful.
... what lies ahead for the Australian Ballet.
GO: Despite the thousands of wonderful and loyal supporters of ballet in this country there are also literally millions of people who have little or no engagement with it.
To make new work is literally to make new work of the now. Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes of the early twentieth century were a powerhouse of creativity engaging the most up-to-date artists, composers and choreographers of their time. There remains a great appetite for classical ballet and I wholeheartedly support that, but when balancing the past with the present we must ensure that commissions remain bold and are relevant and an integral part of contemporary art and culture.
SP: By creating this great programme with Graeme Murphy’s and Gideon’s and my work, David McAllister [Australian Ballet artistic director] is allowing the artists to hang on to their classical, western traditions – but also allowing them to broaden out in to a diverse range of contemporary dance experience. If they keep a good balance of that then I think the artists will have a healthy future.
GM: Well I think they did it best by doing this programme: three commissioned scores, three very diverse choreographers making works that look to the future. It’s about being brave and looking forward and daring to be different. That’s always been something that’s important to the Australian Ballet. The narrative works in the main repertoire are shared by almost every company in the world. The quest of the Australian Ballet to make new work gives it that real edge.
... their rehearsal day lunch of choice.
GO: My lunches are mostly rushed meetings, interviews and answering messages. My lunch of choice would be a pastrami-on-rye with a pickle, sitting quietly outside on a bench – it rarely happens.
SP: You can’t eat too many carbs. A bit of the ol’ tuna or salmon salad, chicken salad. A bit of juice.
GM: I don’t usually do lunch, but the Ballet Centre have a very good canteen. There was a fabulous selection of sandwich fillings and beautiful bread. It was usually a sandwich. A bit like the work: clean and simple.
... their fellow Infinity choreographers.
GO: Stephen is deft with expressive emotions and musicality. Through movement he is able to illustrate the ebb and flow of his brother David’s music. His works conjures a sense of wonderment that is both outwardly luminous and inwardly reinforcing personal feelings.
Graeme is a master craftsman. In this current work, it is the music that informs his structures and sequences. They are at once complex in their make-up and delicate in their effortless dematerialisation. His relationships are neither sexual nor sensual but more intermingling styluses carving intriguing and beautiful shapes.
SP: Both Gideon and I worked as dancers for Graeme when we were in Sydney Dance Company. He’s a master and he was always inspirational to me. He was a mentor, straight up.
Gideon and I had similarities – telling stories in different directions. I was so invested in my heritage and culture and rejuvenating and rekindling Aboriginal stories and Gideon was really into the contemporary art form of directing and choreographing, so we had a similar interest at a very young age.
GM: Both those guys were really great members of Sydney Dance Company – you could tell they wanted to choreograph. Which, in turn, made working with them very exciting because there was a creative force already. They were never passive dancers. They were always very proactive. And you could tell that everything you did sent their brains buzzing, "What would I have done in that circumstance?" It was a constant exercise in creativity, working with them. That’s beautiful and it’s lovely to see that each taken such strong directions of their own. There were never going to be shadows of my choreography. They were always going to come into their own light and they have done it so beautifully.
Darryn King on Twitter
Newsletter
RSS feed
Twitter
Facebook
Google+
Spotify
Foursquare
iPhone App
Other Time Out cities
Magazine subscription
Print
Email
-152x110.jpg)
