Penelope Mullen, Head of the Dance Department at the Aboriginal Centre for Performing Arts (ACPA), chats to Nina Levy ahead of her next season, Blaque Bordello.
Dance has been a part of Penelope Mullen’s life since before she was born. “My mother Yvonne Mapstone (a former Tivoli dancer) was teaching ballet in Sydney while pregnant with me,” she explains. “I am pretty sure I had my first ballet shoes at three years of age.”
So dancing has always been there for Mullen. “It was not a decision or a conscious choice to dance - it was what I did and continues to be the driving force in my life,” she says. “I trained with Halliday’s in Sydney before continuing my classical studies with Kelvin Coe and Kim Trainer at the NSW College of Dance. From there I 'fell' into both the contemporary and commercial dance worlds, which seemed to feed my hunger for all aspects of dance and expression. I finished my training at Ross Coleman’s Performing Arts school before pursuing a career as a performer and choreographer nationally and internationally.”
Mullen’s dance career kicked off in 1985. “My career is best defined by its diversity,” she says. “I was passionate about performing no matter the form. Working in musicals, television, contemporary dance and physical theatre has ensured I would continue to grow as an artist. In recent years I have been both touched and changed by my work in Brazil and as Head of Dance at ACPA. The opportunity to teach, choreograph and collaborate with Indigenous artists spanning two continents has forever changed me. Recent highlights include my 2012 choreographic commission with Queensland Symphony Orchestra (a re-imagining of Stravinsky’s The Firebird Suite) and the opportunity to teach and perform in Brazil over the past five years.”
This week Mullen’s students at ACPA will perform her new cabaret-style work, Blaque Bordello. “Blaque Bordello’s seed was planted late last year while enjoying the company of some former dance and music students,” she recalls. “The name evoked a series of images which only formulated when Lewis Jones from the Judith Wright Centre asked if I would like to develop a cabaret show for their June Spiegeltent season. ‘Yes,’ was my reply… ‘How about 'Blaque Bordello’. It was from there I created a series of works which reflect through contemporary and commercial dance styles both the public facade and the fragility and resolve of the Bordello workers. Bordello is bold and glamorous, but at the works core is the beauty and treachery of human relations. Key to this project are the songs written by ACPA alumni Jonathan Jeffrey and the dramaturgical eye of seasoned artist Brian Lucas.”
Later in the year, Mullen will be working with WA’s Ochre Contemporary Dance Company (OCDC), on its second season. “OCDC’s founder Louise Howden Smith invited me to collaborate with Simon Stewart on a new work entitled Dream Tide for the 2013 season,” she says. “It is an exciting project which brings together Indigenous and non-Indigenous dancers and artists in a project that celebrates diversity and the potential to draw on a range of cultures and contemporary disciplines to birth new choreographic work. I won't feel too removed from my role at ACPA while working with Ochre as two of my dance students have secured contracts with the company and another young dancer from ACPA has been seconded for the season.”
You can catch Blaque Bordello at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts, Fortitude Valley, Qld from Thursday 6 June.
More info: www.judithwrightcentre.com