Try Hard, a new dance production by STEPS Youth Dance Company, will be the first in Western Australia to incorporate Parkour, the urban street movement and philosophy that is sweeping the world.
Involving 48 dancers from ages 7 to 22, Try Hard is STEPS' major production for the year. It is created by artistic director and choreographer Alice Lee Holland, Melbourne choreographer Adam Wheeler, choreographer and performance psychologist Shona Erskine and young choreographer Eve Newton-Johnson, who joins the team as Developing Artist.
Try Hard is based on the experiences of young people around WA, gathered late last year and further developed in the studio with the young dancers. It covers such issues as aspiration and the fear of failure and the flipsides of motivation and apathy, peer pressure and independence.
STEPS Artistic Director Alice Lee Holland said that she was thrilled by the depth, sincerity and complexity of Try Hard. “I think Try Hard has hit a raw nerve,” she said. “The enthusiasm, the openness and the creativity that this special theme has generated is exceptional. Try Hard is a extraordinarily sincere depiction of the dilemma and tension experienced by young people today.
"Try Hard captures the ambivalence in our society towards success and challenges its requirement to blend into the crowd.”
Holland said that Try Hard utilises a range of dramatic dance and movement techniques that challenge and inspire the skills of all the age ranges of the company, with Parkour providing one of the most exciting and exhilarating dramatic climaxes in the dance theatre production. “Parkour is both physical and philosophical,” she said. “Its extreme and stunning movements of vaulting, scaling, and leaping as depicted in James Bond movie, Casino Royale is rooted in a mental discipline that deals with all obstacles whether they be physical or mental in an efficient and focused manner – and the analogy couldn’t be more perfect for the thrilling climax of Try Hard.”
Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre of WA
April 28 Saturday 2pm & 7.30pm
April 29 Sunday 5pm
Book on BOCS on (08) 9484 1133
www.bocsticketing.com.au