Auto Cannibal
Commissioned by ADC (Australasian Dance Collective) and Beijing Dance/LDTX
“Breathtaking in its originality”
World Premiere
Beijing and Tianjin, China, 2019
Auto Cannibal was commissioned by ADC (Australasian Dance Collective) and Beijing Dance/LDTX for Matrix, a double bill with Chinese choreographer MA Bo.
Choreographer’s Note
When creating new dance works I’m conscious of the regurgitation of past choreographic ideas. I’m sometimes afraid that I’m repeating myself or cannibalising my own work. But the fact is that no idea - in art, technology or ideology - is born in a vacuum. We are all a product of our influences and experiences. Ideas are also part of a life cycle - they are born, they thrive, they degrade and deteriorate and become the fertiliser for the next batch of ideas.
Our modern world is obsessed with newness and consumption but this work is an ode to re-using, re-purposing, re-invigorating. In Auto Cannibal we embrace the palimpsests of previous choreographies and see them grow and evolve through the bodies of these extraordinary dancers, meeting from across the world.