It’s been a busy year for WA-based independent choreographer and dancer Rachel Arianne Ogle.
2016 has been all about travel, says Ogle. “I received an Asialink residency to create a new work with Maya Dance Theatre in Singapore," she reports. "And I have the upcoming ‘New Breed’ commission for Sydney Dance Company [29 Nov-10 Dec]. Also I received an Australia Council international residency, with my esteemed collaborators Benjamin Cisterne and Luke Smiles, for the final stage development of new work i have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night at the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Centre (EMPAC) at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, in January 2017.”
The "New Breed" commission will see Ogle choreograph a work on Sydney Dance Company (SDC) dancers as part of a program that sees two independent artists and two SDC company members present new work. At the time of interview, Ogle has spent a week working with SDC's Pre- Professional Year students workshopping intitial ideas for the work she will create on the company dancers for “New Breed", and she's excited. “'New Breed' provides an amazing opportunity to continue to develop my craft with some of the best dancers in the country, and with the support, infrastructure and platform of Australia's premier contemporary dance company," she enthuses. "I want the work to be responsive to the dancers I am working with... so I can't tell you too much about the work yet as I haven't started making it! But I can say that it will be an extension of the interests that have driven my choreographic investigations in the past five years - primarily our interconnectedness to the universe, and our vulnerable and fragile place within this immense system.” Those who saw Ogle's first full-length work Precipice, pictured top, at the WA State Theatre in 2014 will recognise the common threads.
Alongside her work in the professional sector, Ogle has worked extensively in community dance, and speaks with passion about this aspect of her career. “I've loved working in both the disability sector, and regional and remote Australia,” she remarks. "As cliched as it might sound, dance is a universal language, and a profound vehicle for empowerment. I believe community work is about creating a platform for the communities to find and articulate their own unique voice. You cannot quantify the value of this; it is an intangible entity that can only be seen, felt, experienced and lived.”
Anyone who has seen Ogle dance knows that she is a compelling performer, articulate both physically and emotionally. Her early training, however, wasn't in dance but in calisthenics. “I officially started calisthenics when I was 5,” recalls Ogle. “But that was after spending two years at the back of my sister's class copying all of the movements, until my mum finally let me join the class myself!"
The transition to dance came later, shortly after Ogle had finished school. "I never actually knew about the pathways that were possible to study dance and make it a career,” she remarks. “But one day a coach from calisthenics recommended I look at the courses available at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. This led me to auditioning, where I discovered and fell in love with contemporary dance. The rest, as they say, is history!”
- NINA LEVY
“New Breed” plays 29 November – 10 December at Sydney's Carriageworks and features works by Sydney Dance Company's Richard Cilli and Jesse Scale, and independent choreographers Shian Law (Melbourne) and Rachel Arianne Ogle (Perth). See www.sydneydancecompany.com
Top photo by Traianos Pakioufakis. Click on photo for caption.
This article can also be found in the December/January issue of Dance Australia. Want more like this? Look out for the new issue at your favourite magazine retailer or subscribe here, or purchase an online copy via the Dance Australia app.