The Muscle Memory Of Gareth Belling

Muscle Memory: Gareth Belling
Our eclectic team of writers from around Australia – and a couple beyond – with decades of combined experience and interest in all fields.

'Muscle Memory' is the diverse and exciting chamber ballet season that looks at human decisions and choices in a fluid and powerful way. The season has been created by choreographer Gareth Belling in conjunction with Collusion which will be presented by the Judith Wright Centre this August.


Gareth has pushed the boundaries of the Queensland Ballet Pre-Professional Program dancers and the Collusion musicians to create a chamber season that truly evokes and communicates the humanity of experiences and everyday choices that every individual makes. The shows is no ordinary performance, with the dancers and musicians perfectly working together to create a dynamic, powerful, energy filled piece that transcends to the audience in a powerful way. Gareth provides a more in depth understanding of the inspirations, ideas and challenges of 'Muscle Memory'.

gareth2Image © Fen Lan Chuang

'Muscle Memory' is a ballet that is inspired by and directed around daily choices that everyone makes. What was the initial inspiration for creating a season from your past works that explores the idea of every day choices that any individual can relate to?
'Muscle Memory' is a way to tie together the two biggest influences on me as a choreographer. Music has always been at the core of my inspiration, and Ben Greaves from Collusion has been the driver in finding pieces that make me want to dance around the room, while Queensland Ballet trained me as a dancer and gave me a wealth of opportunities to create on fantastic artists over the years. Collusion's chamber ballet 'DESIRELINES' really pushed the audience’s expectations last year, so we wanted to return with something a little more traditional in the way of dance and music collaborations. For 'Muscle Memory' the musicians play, and the dancers dance – but by making that choice, we’ve been able to select the pieces that really stretch the abilities of everyone on stage.

Following on from that, have there been key moments in your life that have assisted with creating and shaping each performance?
A big influence was a JUMP Mentorship in 2011 with international choreographer Nils Christe. At the time I was beginning to think seriously about a life after dancing. Choreography was becoming the main way of expressing myself. Through that mentorship I was selected to attend a coaching project in Zurich and a festival in Vienna. I learnt that ballet was just another language or vocabulary, and that I could say the things I wanted to say with it. Strip ballet of the history, and the regal codes, and it becomes another way of telling stories about people – and the stories don’t always have to be about fairies and princes!

muscle1Image © Fen Lan Chuang

Your previous work' Refraction' is included in this performance and takes a look at a spectrum of choices and individuals. Was this piece a large inspiration for the overall idea of 'Muscle Memory'?
'Refraction' is a favourite of mine, not least because of the fantastic tutu-like costumes that Noelene Hill designed for it. The ballet is very structured, and is shaped by the metaphor of the white light being bent and split into a spectrum, or pathways, as it passes through the prism. The dancers are all signed a colour, and they can only interact with the colours directly next to them in the spectrum. It still fascinates me to consider each experience you have in life bending and shaping you as a person. But you need eight dancers to do the ballet, and the music needed too many players to do live, so it presented some interesting logistical and artistic choices.

You've said that these works are living, breathing organisms. Each piece has a strong sense of humanity and energy that is created through both the dance itself and the live music. Each aspect plays off from each other. Describe what the collaboration process between the dancers, choreography and music was like during the production of this season.
Every piece that I create relies heavily on the dancers to find the truth amongst the steps. The dancers are all young, really on the edge of becoming professional, and so it’s a massive task for them to take the steps and find their own truth in each of the ballets. They are learning works that were created on QB’s Principal and Soloist dancers, and they are eating the opportunity up! Some of the ballets weren’t perfect though. Looking back, they’re a bit rough. 'Transference', which I created in 2011, was a great concept, but had some clunky bits. I’ve decided to change the music for this one, to a beautiful Sonata for Violin and Piano by Brisbane-based composer Catherine Likhuta. In doing that, we’ve reshaped the choreography, corrected some of my earlier “mistakes” and brought a new life to the piece.

You've made the decision to include students from the Pre-Professional Program from the Queensland Ballet to be a part of 'Muscle Memory'. Is your connection to the Queensland Ballet a driving force behind including pre-professional dancers?
It was a natural choice. I completed my training in what was called ‘Professional Year’ at Queensland Ballet back in 2001. The program is bigger now, and full of exceptionally talented and well-trained dancers. It’s a nice tie back to where I started to involve the dancers from the Program in this season.

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You've included three group dances and two intimate duets. Along with giving the show diversity and a beautiful variation of dance and music, why did you choose to incorporate the two duets?
The two duets pare back all the other elements so you are just looking at the relationship. Including them was a nice way to tighten the focus for the audience. 'Mourning Song' is the real heart-grab through. Created to Paul Stanhope’s 'Songline', the duet is about a woman remembering a lover that has died. He returns in her memory, and they dance together one last time. It’s ecstatic, but short lived, and she’s left alone again in the end. Her determination to remember the happy times though, is something that I think anyone that has lost a loved one can related to.

Each dance explores quite dynamic ideas and choices that people often make in their own lives. 'Urban Myths' looks at the image of the “perfect marriage”. How do you push both your dancers and musicians to authentically explore this idea, even if they have not experienced marriage themselves?
'Urban Myths' is the most problematic ballet to remount I think. It was made by a very innocent and naive version of myself back in 2007. Now with so much focus rightly placed on intimate partner violence, I’ve talked to the dancers a lot about the knife-edge this piece is walking. I don’t want it to trivialise what is a very serious issue. Originally it was inspired by a memoir of two brothers growing up in 1950s Australia from a very troubled family and a very abusive father. The neighbours never knew, or if they did, turned their backs and looked away - until it was time to smile for the group photograph. The dancers really understand how serious this ballet is. There’s a lot of laughter an fun in the room for the other pieces, but for 'Urban Myths', it’s a very different story.

muscle2Image © Fen Lan Chuang

The music performed by Collusion adds a whole new layer of excitement, diversity and emotion to each of the pieces. How challenging is the process of achieving the perfect music that amplifies the meaning and emotion behind each dance?
For most of the ballets, the music really came first, and then the dance. So to have it performed live really adds to the heartbeat of each work. With 'Refraction' though, Collusion’s pianist and all-round amazing guy Philip Eames has composed an all-new piano quintet for the ballet. He took the video, and some very loose directions from me, and has created a whole new world for the ballet. As a composer, he has totally tapped into what I wanted to say, and articulated it so beautifully. I can’t wait for everyone to hear it. Generally as a dancer, when you work with musicians there’s a beautiful tension and humanity shared between the performers, all working to tell the same stories. You feel the heightened connection and it creates the most memorable performance experiences.

Your previous works have gained reviews like, "there is nothing more valuable to a dance company than a good, young choreographer in its midst", did you feel any sense of pressure or nerves when creating this season?
There’s definitely a nervousness in showing five ballets in one evening – especially when they are all mine! The biggest challenge was to make sure there was enough variety across the program – I was so scared it would look like the same ballet five times! I’m also very conscious of remaining true to each of the ballet’s original motivations, and not “improving” them in a way that makes them look like Frankenstein’s Monster. Each of the ballet’s have their own life, and so they have to speak in their own style and language.

And finally, if you could pick a favourite piece from 'Muscle Memory' what would it be and why?
'Transition Sequence', without a doubt. It is set to Carl Vine’s 'String Quartet No.3', which was the first piece of Australian chamber music Ben played me when we were first dating. I was instantly hooked on the piece. It only took another ten years to finally be confident enough to choreograph something to it!

'Muscle Memory' will be performed at the Judith Wright Centre from 17-20 August.

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