Coming immediately after the Melbourne Festival, Dance Creation had a hard act to follow. But it more than delighted with a program of choreography that was consistently imaginative and well performed.
Dance Creation is a biennial choreographic event held by the Australian Institute of Dance. This year it was held on Tuesday October 28 at the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne – the 10th outing for this event. Over the years Dance Creation has evolved to become both a showcase and a competition, with the prizes consisting of placements or commissions with a selection of companies or tertiary institutions – Houston Ballet in the US, the Australian Ballet, the Australian Ballet School, the Queensland and WA Ballet companies, Expressions Dance Company and the WA Academy of Performing Arts.
Despite being run on a voluntary basis and with modest means, this year’s Dance Creation was probably the widest-ranging and comprehensive choreographic event in the country. Preliminaries were held in each state, with the winners (and/or runners-up) then provided with the means to travel to Melbourne for the final showcase.
The finalists were Paulina Quinteros (NSW), with ‘Golijov’, named after the Argentinian composer’ whose music inspired it; Lina Limosani (SA), with ‘XX-hume: all kinds of things may one day take our place’, a humorously sinister and sculptural work; Elise May (Qld) with ‘Misplaced Stillness’, “an exploration of the fragility of our connections with others”; and Stephen Agisilaou (Vic/Tas), with the beautifully eccentric ‘Let Down Your Hair’.
After interval came ‘Voltage’ by Isaac Campbell (WA), a spiky work performed on pointe; ‘The Enter Question’ by Rochelle Carmichael (Vic/Tas); ‘L’affichage’, by Daniel Jaber (SA), the newly appointed director of Leigh Warren and Dancers; and ‘Ghost Gum’, by Jesse Martin (WA), inspired by the evocative writing of Kim Scott.
No prizes were announced on the night: the placements being decided at the discretion of the institutions.
Earlier this year Melbourne played host to another choreographic competition, the inaugural year of the Keir Choreographic Award, a much richer event that was open to contemporary choreographers, with the finalists consisting largely of independent choreographers who mostly presented solo works created on themselves. While these two competitions cater to different types of dance, to my mind the works in Dance Creation showed a higher level of choreographic craft in that most were either ensemble pieces (or involved three dancers at the very least). While creating a solo is a valid and time-honoured choreographic pursuit, it is quite a different exercise to create a work for a number of dancers, requiring considerable skill. The choreographers here are all to be congratulated for that alone.
Here’s to the next Dance Creation!
- KAREN VAN ULZEN
Below: Daniel Jaber's ‘L’affichage’. Photo: Ron Fung Photos.
