Biography

Production Info • Media

World Premiere

Thomas Dixon Centre, Brisbane
20 – 30 July 2022

excerpt from Stephanie Lake’s interview with queensland ballet

When choreographing Biography how did you approach the creation process? How did you start visualising the movement?

I work collaboratively with the dancers and talk to them about my intentions and way of working at the outset of the creative process. I let the dancers know that we are making the piece together. The work grows, ferments, and becomes itself through our collaboration.

I am keenly interested in the dancers; what their quirks and idiosyncrasies are, their personalities, and their way of moving. That becomes the work.

How do the strengths of a company influence your approach to movement when you’re creating a piece for them? Do the qualities of Queensland Ballet impact your vocabulary as a choreographer?

Absolutely, in a big way.

…The dancers have a different approach to movement, but I am really delighted by that. We find common ground in the collision of contemporary and ballet. I bring my movement invention and contemporary style to their set of skills. I will give them my movement pathways, tasks, and stimulus to create movement, and the outcome is fascinating because their training background and approach to movement are different. I find that clash of style productive; challenging in a way, but you end up with something unique. As a maker, that’s what I want – I don’t want to be comfortable. It’s a joyful discomfort.

Can you tell us about the music for Biography?

It is going to be a jukebox of styles, like a big eclectic mix tape of music. There’s everything from Ugandan hip hop, to classical, to electronica, to Ukrainian choral music.

Is there something you want the audience to take away from watching this piece?

…Dance is such a uniquely affecting art form – that’s what I love about it – it can reach people in the guts, heart, and muscles. I just want people to have an experience and be transported somewhere during the show. I don’t mind where it takes them, but I hope it is to a place of imagination and makes them want to squirm in their seats. I hope audiences are also amazed by what these dancers are doing because they are incredibly versatile and out of their comfort zone.

You can read the rest of Stephanie’s interview here.

bespoke program note - Queensland Ballet

In celebration of the opening of Queensland Ballet’s new theatre at the heritage-listed Thomas Dixon Centre, this year’s Bespoke promises an engaging mix of daring, original works that will defy ideas about what dance is, what dance can do, and how dance is experienced. Renowned Australian choreographers Greg Horsman, Petros Treklis, and Stephanie Lake have collaborated with dancers and artists to create three compelling new pieces of innovative storytelling, using visual art, music, and the depths of human emotion as elements of inspiration.  

Intricately detailed, musically brilliant, light, dark, and haunting, 2022’s Bespoke offers a sublime merging of classical technique with emotional depth that will lure audiences out of the traditional theatre space and into an intriguing dimension of artistic possibility.