Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui to guest
Perth Moves, part of the Perth Festival, has a very special international guest choreographer for next year's iteration, writes Rhys Ryan.
As the mercury climbs above 40 degrees for what feels like the 10th consecutive day, scores of dancers are sweating it out in the timber-floored studios of King Street Arts Centre. A Perth heatwave can be punishing for the uninitiated, and some of the visitors – from Melbourne, from Taiwan – appear feverish. But somehow the heat gives energy, supercharging the creative exchanges unfolding on the dance floor between artists from all over the Asia-Pacific region.
This was Perth Moves 2024 – a three-week summer dance festival produced by STRUT Dance in collaboration with Perth Festival. Hot days saw professional workshops run by leading Australian and international artists across all forms, from contemporary to waacking, physical theatre to Feldenkrais. At night, a large open-air courtyard hosted street-dance battles, free public movement classes, and a world premiere from Milan-based choreographer Michele Rizzo featuring a cast of local and visiting dancers.
The annual festival is the brainchild of STRUT’s co-directors James O’Hara and Sofie Burgoyne – two Perth-borns who have returned home after several years working in Europe and beyond. Practising artists themselves, the pair have sought to replicate the early-career opportunities they had after university, like the discontinued "Soft Landing" at QL2 Dance in Canberra. They see a real need to create a space where dancers can not only equip themselves with skills needed to survive the independent sector but forge deep creative bonds with other artists. And the more diverse those bonds can be, the better. “Looking back on this year’s Perth Moves, a real highlight was the bursary program delivered in conjunction with BlakDance, and who that opened the door to,” recalls Burgoyne. “Diversifying who is in the studio really enriched the creative exchanges and conversations going on. For us, making the workshops accessible is really important in terms of being able to question who tells the stories in dance and what kind of dancing takes place.”
“Witnessing the relationships between local, interstate and international dancers developing in the months after the festival has been the highlight for me,” adds O'Hara. “That’s what Perth Moves is about: a really diverse, eclectic group of people who otherwise wouldn’t have a chance to connect so deeply as you do in a very intense three-week dance camp where you are living, breathing and sharing so much together.”
The intensity of the exchange was not lost on emerging artist Audrey Goth-Towney – a young Wiradjuri woman making a name for herself in the independent dance sector after training with Sydney Dance Company’s Pre-Professional Year and at WAAPA. Winning a bursary to attend Perth Moves, the 23-year-old dived right in: dancing 9am to 7pm, attending dozens of performances, and stealing any spare moment to cool off in the Indian Ocean.
“I did every workshop I could, so it was a very busy three weeks,” laughs Goth-Towney. “I had never engaged with STRUT before so I was surprised to find a real sense of community there, which has continued since I returned home to Melbourne. It was a combination of the intensive workshop format plus living together – lots of the bursary recipients stayed in the same place – which made me realise how important that sense of community is to my own dance practice. I need to connect with other people, and those connections have to be real.”
Goth-Towney – like many of the nearly 400 participants in the last festival – is already planning for the 2025 edition.
Running alongside professional workshops will be the program’s centrepiece: a brand-new work by world renowned Moroccan/Belgian choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui presented on an outdoor stage in the heart of Perth’s CBD.
“[Cherkaoui] is probably the most versatile yet responsive choreographers of our time,” explains O'Hara, who worked with the choreographer as a dancer and assistant director for over a decade. “He’s working on Broadway, doing Madonna’s world tour, running the [Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève], and with his own company Eastman in Belgium, which is made up of dancers from all cultures and physical backgrounds. There’s incredible diversity in every aspect of his practice. He’s very curious about meeting new people and finding ways to connect with them through dance.”
That curiosity is already apparent in the planning for the work, Manifest, which takes inspiration from Mahatma Ghandi’s movement of nonviolent resistance. Rather than parachuting in Cherkaoui's own team, auditions will be held to find 12 dancers from across Australia and New Zealand for the job. The auditions will be held by STRUT with Nicola Leahey and Nick Coutsier (dancers from Eastman) both on the judging panel. STRUT’s model of forming what O'Hara describes as a “fleeting company” – including two positions for First Nations dancers in partnership with BlakDance – was a determining factor in Cherkaoui agreeing to make Perth the venue of this world premiere and his first Australian creation.
It seems the gravitational pull of Western Australia as a hub of dance will only strengthen with this world premiere, together with another impressive lineup of professional workshops and public offerings for Perth Moves 2025. It’s all part of STRUT’s vision to disrupt the well-trodden path of young dancers flocking to Europe. By platforming the rich artistic diversity of the Asia-Pacific region, particularly its First Nations voices, there’s hope dancers from all over will eventually start making the trip down under for their summer of dance.
For Goth-Towney, that vision rings true.
“Perth Moves brought together so many different and talented people where we learnt so deeply about each other’s practice, ethos and priorities. I haven’t done one of the big European dance workshops, but I honestly feel like what I experienced in Perth was probably the same, if not better.”
The Perth Moves 2025 Workshop Series will run from February 10 to 28, 2025, at King Street Arts Centre, Perth. Workshops leaders include Michael Keegan Dolan, Miguel Gutierrez, Amrita Hepi, Alesandra Seutin, Eisa Jocson and Venuri Perera, Gary Lang, All The Queens Men, Ta’alili, Alice Cummins , Molly Tipping, Shona Erskine, and Adelina Larsson-Mendoza. Three more embargoed artists will be added to the lineup once Perth Festival drops their program Nov 7.
Auditions for Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s Manifest will be held on 16 and 17 November 2024 at King Street Arts Centre, Perth. Registration is required. Registration: https://strut.fillout.com/manifest
For more information about The Perth Moves 2025 Workshop Series, visit https://strutdance.org.au/perth-moves-2025-workshop-series/
