The Brisbane Festival is about to kick off and dance lovers will be pleased to know that there are four dance works in the program.
First up on the dance menu is Desirelines, a collision of dance, music and animation by local company Collusion. Choreographed by Gareth Belling, with composition by Susan Hawkins, Desirelines strikes a new balance between live music and dance. Musicians are often hidden behind their music stands but director Benjamin Greaves integrates the musicians physically into the performance. Desirelines features dancers Nathan Sciclina, Melissa Tattum, Mariana Paraizo and Michael Smith and plays Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts 2-5 September.
Next is a free street culture performance when Brisbane’s RAW Dance brings "RAPcity" to the South Bank Cultural Forecourt. The event will see hip hop and break dance crews of all ages and abilities battle it out for a total prize pool of $5000 on Saturday 5 September.
The third work on the festival program is Le Cargo, a blend of dance, song, music and storytelling by Congolese dancer and choreographer Faustin Linyekula. An Australian premiere, Le Cargo takes audiences on a visual and auditory journey inspired by the story of Linyekula’sreturn home to the Congo after spending many years dancing and choreographing in Europe. Le Cargo plays QPAC 16-19 September.
Last but certainly not least is Flexn, a collaboration between director Peter Sellars and dance pioneer Reggie (Regg Roc) Gray. Featuring 15 dancers from Brooklyn (US), Flexn has been created in an era of unrest in the US, following the rulings on Michael Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner in New York and is deeply imbued with the shape of race relations in contemporary America.
Reggie Gray is a pioneer of one of the world’s newest dance forms ‘flex’. Characterised by pausing, snapping, gliding, bone breaking, hat tricks, animation and contortion, sometimes poetic, sometimes aggressive, flex evolved from the Jamaican bruk-up style found in Brooklyn dance halls and reggae clubs over the last 10 years.
Peter Sellars, renowned for his staging of classical and contemporary theatre works and operas, joined Gray to assemble a crew of 15 dancers within the ‘flex’ community from the very neighbourhoods where the flex movement emerged. Flexn plays QPAC 23-26 September.
For more information about all Brisbane Festival events, including bookings, head to www.brisbanefestival.com.au