Do Australian dancers have a unique style or distinctive quality? What role does our environment play in forming our identity as Australian dancers?
Many Australians who have danced overseas are familiar with the notion of this “Australian identity”, but what it actually constitutes remains elusive. Sometimes likened to spaciousness or a generosity of movement, the style is variously described as “open”, “bold”, “athletic” or “physical”. But if this were so, what of the Russian and the American dancers? They too are generous in their movement, possibly more so.
Although I don’t believe breadth of movement or spaciousness is essentially the distinctive quality of Australian dancers, I do feel that space plays an important role in shaping an Australian dancer’s identity. It is not so much how we move, but how we present, the effect of our environment imbuing a freshness, openness and warmth. The so-called generosity is in our skin, our eyes and our expression, rather than the expansiveness of our port de bras.
Having danced around the world in all manner of spaces and places, and felt the influence of environment even in small doses, I have no doubt that growing up beneath high blue skies, in broad open spaces and enveloped in warmer air, shapes the way we develop. Certainly our training and our cultural heritage play an important role. But it is the amalgamation of these components which forms the overall character or quality – just as it is the soil, nourishment and then culture’s gentle persuasion which give a wine its distinctiveness.
When I first headed to London, aged 16, my blonde hair was dyed dark rousse. I was pale and I wore a quiet, focused expression – not the look usually associated with youthful Australian dancers. Still, beneath this rather dour adolescent guise, I felt different to the other English and international dancers at the Royal Ballet School. Naturally, we all feel a little like outsiders when in a new and strange environment far from home, but I felt my difference shone like a beacon, as bright as the Australian sun.
Garry Trinder, director of the New Zealand School of Dance, grew up in London and he does see a difference in Australian dancers. He contrasts their development to his own experiences: limited natural light, a cold, damp climate, and classes that tended to be very full. “What’s different is that the per capita population is smaller and space is available so people tend to be more generous in their spatial vocabulary”. Trinder also draws attention to fewer social barriers, which he believes has an effect on dancers’ physicality, allowing it to become more “lavish, gregarious and expansive”.
Of course not all Australians grow up by the beach. And Melbournians might contest the notion of high blue skies! There is something, however, across Australia which is consistant in upbringing – a commonality of space, a sense of freedom and opportunity, a newness, an unboundedness. And of course, Garry Trinder says you will find it in New Zealand dancers, too.
Our national ballet company regularly tours overseas. Artistic director David McAllister notes the dancers are often described as being “athletic”. He sees that as being a defining feature of our physicality and performance style whether it is taught, bred or is a natural by-product of our upbringing and culture.
“I guess it comes from our country’s mania with sport and the fact that most Australian kids do sport as well as artistic pursuits and so that healthy athletic aesthetic can permeate how we move,” he says.
Naturally, how we train – our teachers, our mentors and our idols – also affects how we dance. Unlike many European countries, Australia’s ballet heritage is a very mixed one. McAllister points to the early influences of the Russians who stayed in the 1930s and 1940s, followed by the British teaching codes that dominated in the 1950s and 1960s. While today, as he points out, there is a more “international approach” in both repertoire and teaching style which allows dancers to adapt quickly to different works and choreographers.
Australians are, by and large, adaptable. Whether by choice or some inherent sponge-like quality we are often quick to pick up and absorb the tones and expressions of adopted countries overseas. Later in my career, people found it harder to place me. I had been living away from Australian soil for some time, and been influenced by spaces, politics... boyfriends. Their qualities had been absorbed into my flesh and my very being. In some ways I’d been toughened.
At home, in Australia, we are less focused on replicating an aesthetic that is part of our heritage like our European and Americans forebears. Ours is a less stylised approach. Where it is hard for Americans to break away from Balanchine and Broadway, Cunningham and Graham; Russians from Vaganova; Danes from Bournonville and the English from De Valois, Ashton and MacMillan; here, girt by sea, we are able to digest pieces of them all. And the outward expression of such cultural liberation and geographical location is perhaps our own unique Australian quality.
- EMMA SANDALL