Sydney Dance Company’s New Breed is an annual showcase of some of Australia’s most exciting emerging choreography. With New Breed, Australian choreographers are given a unique opportunity to collaborate with Sydney Dance Company and the outstanding contemporary dance company members.
This year’s New Breed choreographers are Piran Scott, Dean Elliott, Amber McCartney and Siobhan McKenna, who will all debut new works at Carriageworks from 4 – 14 December. Here, Dance Informa speaks with Scott and Elliott about their choreographic style and what we can expect from their latest work.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Piran Scott
“I grew up in Mackay in North Queensland. Both my parents are drama and English teachers, so I was introduced to the arts quite young, starting dance at four years old. At the encouragement of my teacher Lynette Denny, I was in the Queensland Ballet Professional Year program before joining the company as a full member. I went to Europe for holidays and company exploration before I heard of the shift in the Directorship at QB, then received a contract and decided to go to Leipzig Ballet. It took a bit to adjust to the different culture, and I was very young, but I really enjoyed the work that we were doing. In moving into more contemporary work, I auditioned around and eventually went to Basel Ballet in Switzerland. I met and danced with my wife in Leipzig Ballet before working together again at St. Gallen. After 10 years, I wanted to come home. I met Sydney Dance Company in Paris, and auditioned in 2022. I actually learned a solo that Dean was doing that Rafael [Bonachela] was choreographing; he helped me get the job! We (my wife and I) both received a position in Sydney Dance Company in 2023, which was really lucky.”
Dean Elliott
“I’m originally from Auckland, New Zealand. I grew up there, starting out in gymnastics as my introduction to movement, with some dance in Primary School, taking it more seriously at 16. I then moved to Sydney to train at Ev & Bow, and competed in the Brisbane International Contemporary Dance Prix, which granted me a 10-week secondment at Sydney Dance Company, after which I joined the company for my first season in 2019.”
Tell us about the work you are creating for New Breed 2024.
Scott
“My work is inspired by the works of Tim Winton, particularly around his description of the ocean. It is called Breath, and is an ode to nostalgia, which for me is tied in being away in Europe for 10 years, listening to Australian artists and reading novels, and the imagery of being connected to the ocean, and the coastal landscape. My music score ties into this as well – a John Butler acoustic guitar track called Ocean.
We live our existence so close to something so beautiful, but also so powerful and dangerous. I want to tie a journey of life through different moments of breath and our connectedness to the ocean and our landscape. I have a protagonist, going through six moments of breath in someone’s existence, from being in the womb, to birth and first breath through to the last breath that we take, in the context of community or family.”
Elliott
“My work started from my love of gymnastics. I have always been very intrigued by the dance element of the sport and its unique style, where it has come from and why. I’m inspired by the power and the beauty of women’s gymnastics, how it combines intense acrobatics with dance. I think there’s something quite touching about watching someone be in the zone and focus on a task. And, you know, there’s the glitz of the sparkly costumes.”
How would you describe your choreographic style and method(s) you have been using to create your piece?
Scott
“I’ve made work in Switzerland in a similar program; however, I’m still discovering my voice and the trajectory I’d like to go as a choreographer. I think a lot of my process stems back to the theatrical, e.g. Stanislavski method, but I’ve tried to work specifically in this case with the concept. Previously, I’ve done things that are a little bit more humorous, and with text and theatre. This time, I wanted to do a piece that translated a little bit more poetically through the body. I’m working a lot with that imagery, reading parts of Tim Winton’s writing to my dancers, starting from a place of improvisation. One of my dancers had the idea of flashbacks, so I went to each dancer individually and spoke to them about a flashback of being in the ocean, or a memory of going to the beach, focussing on connection to their history. I wanted the concept to be seen as elements with a lot of fluidity, a liquid quality, but then juxtaposing that with isolation, in angular and sharp movements. I’m playing with that duality of the ocean, the beauty but also the violent nature of the waves. In Winton’s Breath, the protagonist speaks about that first time that he gets up on a wave is like a revelation that he remembers throughout his whole life ‘….like dancing on water.'”
Elliott
“This is my first choreographic work, so It’s been a huge learning process for me. Learning how to lead a room, make decisions, express myself through words and communicating what I’m wanting to see on other bodies, has been a challenge. Finding my choreographic style will be a constant evolution. In terms of my concept, I find myself always playing with this gymnastics style of choreography just for fun, and that has influenced my personal movement style, particularly when it has come to tasking for other works in the past. I find that sense of play super important. I’ve really tried to bring that into my process as a base, with physical tasks, focussing on gymnastic physical principles like twisting, flipping and acrobatics becoming the movement, rather than trying to imitate gymnastics. I’ve been studying movement videos from old gymnastics routines, and this has been a big part of the process. It’s a merging of how I like to move with what I like to see in the gymnastics style.”
Who/what are the biggest influencers to your choreographic voice, past and present, and how has choreographic history informed you?
Scott
“I was naturally influenced by my classical training, e.g. Petipa and narration. Francois (Klaus) worked with John Neumeier in Hamburg, so his ballets were very theatrically based, which I was drawn to. In Germany, I did some Uwe Scholz work, who is a genius at creating cutting edge neoclassical ballets, particularly in his use of musicality. Some of the modern masters of contemporary, such as Alexander Eckman, whom I was hugely inspired by, and Johan Inger, who was taking ballets and really twisting them, creating dark and humorous elements, such as Inger’s Carmen, which is also now in The Australian Ballet repertoire. Further into that contemporary world where you then start to show expression through the body and emotion rather than obviously following more of that strict narrative line, such as Dimo Milev (Netherlands), who has beautiful control and fluidity, Iván Pérez (Heidelberg), or Hofesh Shechter (Israel), moving into abstract works which are all about creating an atmosphere, and trying to get the audience to experience immersion in an environment rather than narrative.”
Elliott
“My experiences have mostly been with Sydney Dance Company. A lot of my process has been with Rafael Bonachela, which has naturally influenced the way that I see work being made, avenues through which to create solos, duets, trios, group sections, and how it’s put together. As Piran said, working with these choreographers who are very influential in the contemporary world has been very inspiring. Doing a William Forsythe work in 2020 was huge – learning about that movement language. Ohad Naharin’s Decadance for the Sydney Festival in 2021 was my introduction to Gaga (movement language) techniques, I really connected with its physicality. Also working with Marina Mascarell last year was my first time working a lot with improvisation as a tool to create movement, filming it, and constantly finding something new. There’s definitely that ode to the past, stepping up to where we are now. Dance can be something so structured, but also there’s this idea that choreographers can come in and give you the possibility to do improvisation on stage, and you have all these tools, alongside complete freedom on stage. I think that’s the beauty, and the way dance is evolving.”
Both of you are in the company as dancers. What is it like choreographing on your Sydney Dance Company colleagues?
Elliott
“It’s challenging for sure. Going from being colleagues to having a more leadership role, but it’s also quite nice because we know them so well, their strengths and how to utilize them in the best way. We both had discussions about who we were going to use to best fulfill the vision of what we were specifically trying to create, and I think that can be complicated in a way. It’s just specifically how you want your concept to come across. It obviously comes with its challenges, but I’ve enjoyed his time and working with them on my work in that more theatrical sense, which is different to our usual repertoire.”
Where do you see Australian choreography of the future headed, and why will it be unique?
Scott
“I think Australia is still growing in an understanding of dance, and particularly contemporary dance. Companies like Sydney Dance Company are on the forefront of leading that charge to educate the audience, not only in the sense of entertainment, but understanding that it has a place in the landscape of Australia and the wider arts scene. I think we do have an important role to play as dancers, but now also as choreographers in these platforms, to start pushing that next step and showing our creative voices, becoming more prevalent in our culture. In Germany, there’s a dance company in every small village. I hope we start to build this following of dance in Australia, so we can move forward and start taking more and more risks, to be able to show more of a unique Australian voice, and start to challenge the understanding of societal issues, using dance as a platform to question. I’d like to have my work be a vehicle to have these conversations.”
Read about the other New Breed choreographers here.
For tickets and more information on New Breed 2024, visit www.sydneydancecompany.com/performance/new-breed-2024.
By Linda Badger of Dance Informa.
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