Dance is one of those expressive art forms that can unite, divide and move audiences everywhere.
Dance is one of those expressive art forms that can unite, divide and move audiences everywhere. There is something so transcendent and incendiary about powerful and fluid movement that ruptures language, culture, age and gender barriers to communicate something incredibly potent, beautiful and poignant.
Adam Wheeler is the Artistic Director of 2ndToe Dance Collective, a group that nourishes and hones the skills of recent dance graduates and puts on some pretty damn amazing shows. We had a chat to him about the company and the collective’s latest and incredibly exciting project, Something Blew.
“2ndToe Dance Collective is a collective that I started about four years ago with a group of young VCA dance students. Every year we have about 100 graduates come from all our dance training institutions into the industry, and it’s very hard for them to showcase [their talent] or to find jobs and get work. So I wanted to set up a collective that would work with recent graduates and designers and dancers to make work, and to be able to showcase them in front of the industry and artistic directors from around Australia.“
Something Blew is The Collective’s latest offering, a collaborative dance performance that focuses on the concept of marriage and the dynamics of relationships in 2010. “Originally the idea was to create a four-part project based on the old English proverb of “Something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.” We looked into what “something blue” meant in that proverb. We found it quite intriguing that the blue in a wedding dress represents the idea of purity, modesty and fidelity. We then started thinking about current relationships and thought, “Wow, we don’t live by those morals anymore.” We’re all kind of sexually free and marriages are kind of in and out; we have multiple marriages now. While we look at that concept, we also deter a little bit away from weddings all together and start looking at what it means to be in a 2010 relationship. We at the company are all in our twenties, so what does it mean for us. We look at the relationship between love, desire and the tradition of marriage.”
The group has created a project that is collaborative in more ways than one, with 2ndToe Dance Collective supporting and encouraging the physical and verbal contribution of all its students. “A few of us have been in relationships within the company, within The Collective. And now we’re together as colleagues and friends. And we were discussing how much baggage can already come into a relationship just on initial greetings. A lot of the work has come from personal experience. We would literally put one of us on the stage, in a chair, and the rest of the collective would just throw questions at them about their first love, their first sexual experiences, their relationships, their parents… All of the work has come from a very personal and private place.
“It’s really important for me in The Collective that they all have a voice and again, when we come back to the idea of 100 students coming out and wanting professional work, they can all dance, they can all move, they’re all great performers, but it’s actually the ones that can get into a choreographic situation and process and make work are going to be the ones who will get a gig. So, if we can create a platform for these young graduating students to develop those skills and collaborate further, then we’re doing the right thing.”
So if you’re not already rushing out to book your seat at what promises to be an astounding and unmissable performance, Adam tells us exactly why you should hit the web and get yourself some tickets: “We’ve got a hot team of young and emerging designers working on the project, and a group of young and emerging dancers who are very sexy, and very talented. There are some really bold and striking scenes and some kick ass contemporary dancing.”
Something Blew by 2ndToe Dance Collective will show at Theatre Works from October 27 to November 6. For all tickets, hit up the Theatre Works website at theatreworks.org.au
