Jo Lloyd is Melbourne based dance maker and choreographer. Jo started dance at a young age before going on to further study at the Victorian College of the Arts.
Jo has worked with a range of companies as a dancer and choreographer including Lucy Guerin Inc, Chunky Move, Back to Back Theatre Company and worked with artists Deanne Butterworth, Shian Law, Nicola Gunn, Gideon Obarzanek, Shelley Lasica, Sandra Parker, Prue Lang, Rebecca Jensen and many others.
Talking about working with dancers collaboratively, Jo said: “I like it when it's a little bit nudgy and pushy, you know, they have strong opinions and they're comfortable and I'm comfortable with them stepping up, stepping forward and saying, 'I think this needs to be this and then we'll have that discussion'.”
Jo has presented work in New York, Japan, Hong Kong and locally in Dance Massive, Next Wave, the Biennale of Sydney, Liveworks and Dark MOFO. She has taught for Akram Khan, Bangarra, Dancenorth, ADT, the Australian Ballet and teaches dance and Yoga regularly at Chunky Move, VCA and Lucy Guerin Inc.
In 2016, Jo was Resident Director of Lucy Guerin Inc. where she started developing her work OVERTURE. The work premiered in 2018 at Arts House Melbourne, with dancers reconstruct and invoke lost heroes in order to play out impossible scenarios. Jo discusses in the interview the original reception of OVERTURE:
“I sort of think that I think maybe the aesthetic choices and the music really framed it in a certain way that allow people to see the material the physical material differently and then you just think well actually maybe it's just that timing that people were ready to see a show like that and if it had happened two years ago or in two years that the word would have.”
As part of Dance Massive OVERTURE, will be presented in a new way, with an onscreen version, proposing a new way of experiencing the work. Filmed on special cameras by James Wright (NON Studio), this onscreen version will give a different insight into the work.
OVERTURE : FULL EDIT
Free Screenings, Tue 19 - Sun 24 March at Arts House. More details.
This interview covers so much of Jo’s extensive career, including how she found dance, her process, ways of recording and capturing movement, as well as what is on for 2019.