WAAPA students rise to new heights

"Rise", West Australian Academy of Performing Art’s mid-year dance season for 2nd and 3rd Years, will showcase the students' prowess in both classical and contemporary dance. 

WAAPA Classical Dance Coordinator Kim McCarthy has been joined in choreographing the classical display by visiting guest artist, Leanne Stojmenov, a former principal dancer with the Australian Ballet. They have created a program of exquisite excerpts from some of the world's favourite ballets, under the title Tout de Suite.

For the contemporary dance component of the Rise program, WAAPA has welcomed back two of its dance alumni, Laura Boynes and Jenni Large, as visiting guest artists to work with the students.

Boynes is an award-winning dancer, choreographer and dance filmmaker who graduated from WAAPA with Honours in 2007. Her fascination with the moving image has seen her involved in projects across the genres of dance, theatre, experimental music, site-specific and opera. Boynes won a Dance Australia Critics’ Choice Award for Most Outstanding Dancer and two prestigious Australian Dance Awards for her choreographic work.

Mammoth, her new work for "Rise", invites the students to explore physical ideas that reference "the sublime".

When Jenni Large graduated from WAAPA in 2010, she set the tone for her career by taking out the Hawaiian Award for Most Outstanding Dance Student. Since then she has worked extensively in independent and company environments both nationally and internationally, most notably as a formative ensemble member at Dancenorth from 2015-2020. Currently a Creative Associate at Tasdance, Large is a passionate independent dance practitioner.  

Large is collaborating with the WAAPA students to create a work which expands on themes that present themselves through the creative process.

'Rise' will take place from June 10 to 16 at the Geoff Gibbs Theatre, Mt Lawley, Perth. More info here.