Expressions Dance Company has presented a number of bold contemporary dance pieces since its founding in 1984.
Their latest offering is ‘Converge’, a show featuring new works choreographed by Company members Richard Causer and Jake McLarnon, Beijing Dance Limited’s Xu Yiming, and acclaimed contemporary dance maker Stephanie Lake.
Stephanie has spent most of her life devoted to dance, having studied contemporary dance at the Victorian College Of The Arts. She’s since performed across Australia and the world, founded the Stephanie Lake Company, and worked with many prestigious companies. ‘Converge’ will be her second time working with Expressions Dance Company, having previously collaborated on the piece ‘Mozart Airborne’.
“I thought they were such a great, small company that’s just really keen and committed, so I thought I’d come back,” Stephanie says. “We’re making something slightly bigger this time.”
‘Converge’ will see each of the four choreographers present a piece they have worked on with the company’s dancers. The performance is accompanied by musicians from the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University, who will be playing live as the dancers perform.
“Expressions works with live music quite a bit; it’s kind of their thing,” she says. “Working with the live music is a whole other dimension. What’s so great about dance is that liveness of the human body, and it brings it out of the music as well. There are challenges because we rehearse in the studio to the recorded version of things and then when you get to the stage where you’re working with the live musicians it’s slightly different – the timings are a bit different and you’ve got to be able adapt to the slightly different interpretations of things. That’s a challenge for me, but I’m into it.”
Each of the pieces will showcase the unique styles of each of the choreographers, surely putting the dancers through their paces.
“I’m interested in contrast and movement that’s not necessarily pretty. I like things that are really distorted and weird in the body, working with speed, and bone-crunching physicality. I’m really hoping to draw on the skills of the dancers because they’re a fantastic group and really technical and expressive. I want to push them as much as I can – their physicality – and make something quite dynamic. I think that put with music you wouldn’t necessarily associate with that kind of movement is what’s interesting.”
Recently, Stephanie received what she called “the greatest phone call ever”. The Australian Council Fellowship announced her as the recipient of their award for dance, whose support will allow her to create more ambitious work, including a work for 50 to 100 dancers. “It’s going to be a busy couple of years,” she says.
Whether it’s something as big as her dreams or as challenging as choreographing ‘Converge’, Stephanie is grateful for the opportunities she has received; working with the best dancers and choreographers, creating new work, and to play.
“I was talking to one of the dancers yesterday. She stepped away from dance for a little while and went into financial management. She came back to it because no other job lets her play creatively all day, and it’s true. We’re just in the studio playing: looking for things, imagining things, making things up. It’s like being a kid sometimes.”
