In collaborating with Collusion Musical Arts and composer Susan Hawkins to create new work Transient Beauty, choreographer Gareth Belling has returned to his roots, in a sense. “I actually made my choreographic debut with Collusion Music in 2005, at the prompting of violinist Benjamin Greaves (violinist and leader of Collusion Music),” he explains. “I have maintained an active creative relationship with the ensemble since then.”
Transient Beauty will be presented at Restrung Festival, a three-day music festival at the Brisbane Powerhouse, described online as “a celebration of genre-bending strings-driven music bridging the borders between rock, folk, world music, jazz, contemporary classical and electronica.”
As one might expect, given that the work is being performed at a music festival, Transient Beauty is both a music and a dance work. In fact the work is interactive. “The musicians will share the space with the dancers. In some very simple imagery, they will echo, and also contrast at times, what is happening between the dancers’ characters,” says Belling. “A highlight will be a duet between myself and Benjamin Greaves, who will play the improvised violin line of a beautiful new trio composed by Susan Hawkins for Transient Beauty, as we dance together. I love that we can finally make this creative relationship, which has always been ephemeral, very real and visceral on stage. Cellist Danielle Bentley, clarinetist Diana Tolmie and Benjamin also feature in a beautiful little dance phrase during the finale of the piece.”
Transient Beauty features Queensland Ballet principal dancer Rachael Walsh, Brisbane-based freelancer Melissa Tattam and Janette Mulligan, ex-principal dancer with the English National Ballet.
Transient Beauty will play the Brisbane Powerhouse at the end of October – more info here.
Transient Beauty will also play Byron Bay in November – more info here.
