‘The challenge has been to create these processes that we can carry Country with us. So whether we’re, you know, performing internationally or you know on other people’s Country here in Australia, we’re carrying part of that - that process is always with us. So if it was a production that’s had choreographic processes that have been out on a specific site or a place that that has given us material, we carry that with us.’
‘My daughter Billie, she was in rehearsal today. My son Archie grew up the first two or three years of his life, like, on tour with me when I was with Bangarra Dance Theatre and just being in the artistic environment and being surrounded by people is such a beautiful gift, I think, that I can give to them as well.’
‘When I'm making dance and when I think about choreography or art, I often relate my early childhood experiences to the things that I make now as well.’
‘I guess for a lot of people, ballet is still very much an evolving, developing language. I think people think it was probably stuck in a time and hasn't progressed. But modern ballet is very challenging and arresting and it's finding new ways of working with an old structure.’
‘keep creative, it can be in the garden, it can be any kitchen, it can be wherever but we're dancers and we can dance anywhere.’
‘thanks everybody for listening in on my story and that you know, hope you've learned something.’
‘So I've been refusing the temptation to put work on online to put work on platforms where they eliminate that very core function of connecting people’
‘I've always tried to get boys dancing. It's like a mission for me. Because it's always seemed odd to me that our culture is a bit you know, doesn't encourage boys to dance very much.’
‘and I just wish people would be a bit more honest about what they're making rather than trying to pretend it’s something else because fundamentally I feel that’s dishonest to the public.’
‘I move over to the bloody other side of the world, and I feel in many ways more connected to my Australian-ness and my Indonesian-ness? How is that possible?’
‘What I love about the dance world is that it has the possibility of bringing together so many different cultures, so many different people, beliefs, ways of thinking, ways of being in a space.’
‘We’ve got this false sense of what time is and that it’s just happening to us. But it’s not. We’re in full control of that time.’
‘A mistake is a fleeting moment, and what is a “mistake”, anyway? Don’t get caught up on the small things like that. Mistakes happen, or things happen.’
‘The ability to physically communicate a message non verbally, is a powerful, powerful tool that all audience members can appreciate, can understand, you know, dance was, is, a tribal act.’
‘I’ve also been doing my research in terms of the whole trying to remove the whole binary construct of gender and the fact that people can be fluid or non-binary.’
‘Good dance session, whether it's with whatever community, should be multi-layered in terms of what are we learning about dance, but also what we’re learning through dance, because if we just focus on what the kids are learning about dance, we forget they’re human beings and that we should be developing them as human beings too.’
‘It was a light bulb, I was like, ‘This is what I’m meant to do, this is destiny, this is a way I can connect to my culture, into my heritage and grow my identity.’’
‘There's a space where young people can start to understand those things about themselves. And yeah, and be challenged to maybe take on the characteristics of another person or be interested in other person, but that everyone's got the time to ask questions and be listened to.’
‘Dance lets me connect, let's dance, let's reconnect with the world at such a deep level that I can't imagine any other industry or platform allowing that to happen.‘
“As a dancer, I'm interested in finding at the moment, in finding dualities between objects, persons, place…”
“But there was a life that's probably more the stronger point; there was a lifestyle thing in there that I totally fell in love with this strong sense of community and support.”
“I have all this information in my body, through working with many different choreographers, and having some incredible experiences on stage as a performer. “
“For me, dance is about what it's doing with people, for people and what it's expressing.”
“I've been incredibly blessed to be working for the last four or five years at Chucky Move because the little tribe that we've got here including Anouk but the other dances are seriously bunch of the most talented rigorous thinkers and movers around. It's like been an absolute joy and that's totally influenced what I do and how I do it”.
“ I like to shake things up, I like to go against the grain. And I think I more people need to show who they are as people so that your work on stage becomes more authentic.”
“I think dance, movement, is something so, so primal, you know, and it's something that so many people could get so much out of it. So, for me, I guess it's about this whole thing…we're creating great work, we will keep raising that bar at Sydney Dance Company”
“like the fact that the sexual undertone or the desiring undertone that a lot of dancers operating through - and for me, it was very important to make it explicit to actually say, okay, part of what is happening here is actually a question of desire, it is a question of being stimulated physically.”
“I'm trying to understand is how do we be together and how do we share space?”
“Dance has that very exclusive possibility to express something physically, something that other forms aren’t able to express…watching a body go through some kind of negotiation, experience or sensation, which as an audience you can share”
“Complacency will kill the opportunity to make it in this industry.”