World Premiere Chunky Move
November 21-30 2013, Melbourne, Australia
Commissioned by Chunky Move, AORTA had a sold-out premiere season in 2013 and won the Australian Dance Awards for both Outstanding Choreography and Outstanding Male Dancer, James Pham. Aorta was also nominated for two Green Room Awards.
Inspired by the metronomic nature of the heart – our ticking clock – AORTA attempts to bring the interior workings of our bodies to the surface.
It could be argued that we are our biology; that there is no separation between mind and body and that, in fact, our every action is predetermined by our genetics and physiology. Despite vast breakthroughs in science we still don’t know it all. What drives us is essentially a mystery.
Much of AORTA is a choreographic investigation of our complex physical system – how does blood move? What does a neural pathway look like? But it is also the story of our mortality, our growth and decay. I wanted to explore both our tremulousness as well as the driving surge of our aliveness; the fragile, crumbling bones and the bombastic beat driven animal.
Threading throughout the work is the notion that at any given time we are both alive and dying and that the inevitability death joins us all.