Australian Dance Theatre is Adelaide’s contemporary dance company consistently winning global acclaim for its energetic interpretations of Artistic Director Garry Stewart's work.
At the 2016 WOMADelaide, ADT will present the world premiere of 'The Beginning Of Nature', a performance based on the complex, overlapping rhythms of nature, with music composed by Brendan Woithe and performed by the Zephyr Quartet. The performance will also feature special guest vocalists Shauntai Batzke and Vonda Last.
Garry Stewart has compiled 5 facts about Australian Dance Theatre:
One
In a company of nine dancers, three are named Tom - Thomas Gundry Greenfeld, Thomas Fonua and Thomas Bradley. “It does get a little confusing," says Garry, "but we promise our recruitment procedures are not name-based.”Two
While we are a contemporary dance company, our dancers have daily lessons in a variety of disciplines including ballet, yoga, pilates, meditation and even breakdancing – yes that was breakdancing. “Each discipline teaches new skills to the dancers. If you look closely in our work, you can even spot the odd head spin... but probably not the robot," says Garry.Three
Many people don’t realise the D in WOMAD stands for Dance. We are premiering 'The Beginning Of Nature: Part One' at WOMAD. It will be our second world premiere of a work in under two weeks. We unveiled 'Habitus' at the Adelaide Festival, because yes, we are nuts and thought one new piece wasn’t going to be quite enough to push us over the cliff of sanity. Two premieres has certainly done the trick.
Four
The score for 'The Beginning Of Nature' is composed by Sydney-based wunderkid Brendan Woite and will be performed by Adelaide’s Zephyr Quartet. Also appearing live on stage are indigenous singers Vonda Last and Shauntai Batzke, who will be singing in the Kaurna language. Both women have had to learn Kaurna words and phrases especially for the piece.Five
Kaurna is the language of the indigenous people of the Adelaide plains – which was a dying language until the 1990s. But huge effort has gone into reviving the language it is now being spoken again. Jack Buckskin, our indigenous language consultant is currently the only teacher of the Kaurna language in all of Adelaide.Five and a half
We highly recommend the 'Gozleme' at WOMAD – they’re so good.'Beginning Of Nature' performs WOMADelaide 12 & 14 March.
