AM I
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AM I

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A true collaboration between dance, music and spoken word, AM I looks at the notion ‘self’ through a scientific lense and questions whether we’re still just the same tribe-obsessed Neanderthals who fear The Other. Beat spoke to Parker about his fascinating work and how he came to meld the worlds of dance and science.

“The piece observes science and genetics and explores the quantum physics of what created the world that we live in in the first place,” he explains. “It then jettisons all the way through to the evolution of the brain. We know more because our brain has evolved and the more knowledge we attain, I feel that it’s shifting key aspects of spirituality in humans.”

The fact that the realms of art and science are generally so far removed from one another is one of the aspects of this piece that makes it so fascinating. Interestingly, Parker was inspired to combine these two worlds by the 2005 Cronulla riots, but it quickly evolved into something far bigger.

“I wanted to do a piece that was really Australian and inspired by topics here,” he says. “It started off being very socio-political and I asked, ‘Why do people have to shun, reject and kill others that are different to them?’

“We pretend to be quite sophisticated but we’re still violent and savage. As I kept researching as excavating it became more universal. I wanted to go beyond one event. The more I researched religions, gods, cosmology and quantum physics the more I wanted to look before men were effected by other men in terms of religion, brain washing. I wanted to start at the cradle of civilization.”

Another unique aspect of the piece is that Parker collaborated with scientists whilst putting it together.  “I went to see Dr Heather Johnson, a professor in physics and cosmology at the University of Sydney. At the time, the Higgs Boson particle had been discovered, which they had been trying to prove the existence of for 60 years. She loved the idea that some of her theories could be taken into the creative realm. I would show her choreography and discuss the concepts and she would give me things to read so I could manifest some of that stuff into the physical actions of the dancers.

“I also met with a professor of biological evolution and professor of anthropology in regards to the idea that Homo sapiens fundamentally started in Africa. However there’s theories now that there may have been another strain that started in Asia.”

Injecting scientific theory, religion and spirituality into the world of dances sounds like an impossible feat. I couldn’t help but ask Parker how he managed to actually pull it off. “My aim is to always bring it back to core, crystalised ideas that are specific, but also universal,” he explains. “We have a sub-textual narrator in the work, so there’s spoken word. She does a nice text about Pi and other scientific elements. What she does is presents information and people can then use that however the want.“

Considering that we’re living in the modern world, it seems rather apt that Parker also mined technological sources for inspiration. “We actually got some of the text [for the narrator] from Facebook. It’s used almost like a modern day bible or confessional. People get free counseling just by posting about how they’re not feeling well today and 20 people respond,” he laughs. “It then also becomes a political forum where people can protest homophobia and racism. It’s become its own little digital church and political arena. I find that incredible, so I was able to pluck out some things that people were concerned about [to use] and Facebook gets a little nod in the piece.”

Dance only makes up a singular element of AM I. The choreographer also stressed how important music is to the piece. “I’m working with the composer Nick Wales and we’ve built up a very interesting collision of music and dance in the theatrical world where dance takes place and where the music is just as important and is intrinsic to it.

“The music itself is drawn from rhythmic patterns from different cultures, from a new language that they created which is a mixture between Latin and Pygmy Papua New Guinean with new melodic structures. If there was a band that was part world music and part cult, that’s what we’ve gone for,” he laughs.

After having a working relationship with Nick Wales for over eight years, it’s unsurprising that the choreographer continues to wax rhapsodic about his work and his fascinating sources of creativity. “There’s some beautiful stuff that Nick does with his singers. He traveled to Africa to get some inspiration, and some of the monkey calls he heard when he was alone in the forest have been worked into the musical framework. Musically, hopefully that translates. The audience sits there and they hear this music, and they feel it as it invokes this other-worldly tribe. We then use that with the narrator who uses snippets of scientific information throughout.”

BY TEGAN JONES