Dancers Jarrod Pittman, Rebekah Andrews and Amber Lester. Photo by Jen Brown.

One word. Five days. Two professional choreographers, and thirteen student dancers.

These were the key ingredients for the Tasdance production Pulse. Staged in three regions across Tasmania during April, the program selected thirteen dancers from classes conducted in Tasmania’s senior schools and colleges to stage a performance based on the thoughts inspired by the word ‘pulse’.

The tuition, offered through Tasdance’s Education Program, took professional dancers Malcolm McMillan and Sarah Fiddaman onto the school campuses, giving aspiring young dancers a chance to experience the real deal. Contributing to the choreography, rehearsing and touring the show are basics in a contemporary dance context and this group of fifteen to seventeen year-olds got the chance to try all this on for size.

The feedback from the young dancers featured in the program was resoundingly positive, indicating that all felt the adrenalin, thrill, muscle pain and pleasure of performance. Their hard work resulted in a high-calibre production delivered to a mightily impressed audience. During the question and answer session following the penultimate show in Hobart, teacher and dancer McMillan admitted that, being a ‘dance snob’, he initially did not relish the idea of teaching in a school environment. By the end of the whole tour he had so loved the experience and the connections he made with the students that he didn’t want to give them back to regular school life. ‘I want to keep them!’ he announced.

Annie Grieg, the Artistic Director of Tasdance, described the project as a means of giving the selected dancers an ‘insight into the choreographic process of creating a dance work embellished with all the production elements. ‘

The production was choreographed and rehearsed over just five days. The dancers improvised, then chose their favourite movements to incorporate into the show. The performance was comprised of a series of ‘shorts’ or chapters, throughout all of which the ‘pulse’ ran – through the theme, movement and music. The three solos were all created by the dancers themselves and overall the students contributed to about half of the production’s end result.

On a bare, dark stage, some segments were interpretive reflections of the dancers’ response to the music, and matched the subject matter literally – the regular drumming of the human heartbeat woven into strands of music. Yet, in another item, the theme of a racing pulse was conveyed by a 50’s-style ‘jealous women’ routine that could have leaped out from an Ethel Merman film, complete with ‘dooby-dooby-do’ vocals as soundtrack.

An interesting inclusion in the show was a short spoken-word piece by one dancer, connecting the performer directly with the audience and serving as a reminder that contemporary dance is truly a broad canvas on which the narrative of the story can be written. It was interesting to observe what young dancers like to perform, reflecting their influences in such formative years. Little tastes of Merryl Tankard and Tanja Liedtke were peppered throughout the routines, which were possibly the contribution of Fiddaman and McMillan, or offered by the new dancer’s own exposure to emerging styles.

The inclusion of mime added a little extra dimension, and the dancers proved neat actors. One movement was featured as a short piece of black and white video, which did have the potential to be very effective. However, perhaps it was in this piece that the short timeframe became apparent because the video, although a great concept, was the least choreographed and most casual aspect of the performance, detracting from the overall segment of which it was a part. It needed more preparation, even scripting, to be effective but would be worth exploring as a project in it’s own right. Film, or video is such a natural medium for this generation of performers, and dancers are no exception.

The production was a fantastic showcase of the potential energy and talent on offer if these young students find expertise and guidance in the industry. The audience were wildly enthusiastic about the show, and the cast so obviously delighted in the resounding applause. And while this experience may have taken some of the gloss off the veneer of the dancer’s life by showing participants the long, tiring reality of the profession, should these dancers choose to pursue this craft they have also felt the fun, excitement and sense of collegiate that a company of dancers cultivates.

Credits