Associate Artist Pathways 2021

Over the last 40 years, there have been many First Nations dance artists graduating from the National Aboriginal Islander Skills Development Association (NAISDA) and the Aboriginal Centre for the Performing Arts (ACPA) every year, at a steadily growing rate. Our Associate Artist Pathways Program provides graduate dancers with secondments, training and development in house at BlakDance.

This creates pathways for the graduates future employment, enables ongoing conditioning and technique, exposes them to the aesthetic of diverse First Nations dance artists and choreographers, builds networks and relationships with other dancers in the industry and enables them to be considered for casting in future work.

BlakDance will support the graduate dance artists in developing meaningful relationships through the course of the program and advocate for the individuals in the progression of their careers, by providing professional skill development, referees and elevating their professional profile in our networks.

Associate Artists 2021

Karul Projects engaged our two current Associate Artists Olivia Adams and Amy Weatherall for the Creative Development at The Farm (Yugambeh / Gold Coast) in April 2021. They reflect on their experience with the company.

Olivia Adams

“This process has strengthened my  versatility and adaptability as a dance artist.”

As one of BlakDance’s Associate Artists I was seconded to the creative development of Weredingo for two weeks. This secondment was more hands-on than others I have been involved in, due to Karul’s Co-Director Taree Sansbury being pregnant and two weeks away from her due date. My role was to focus on learning Taree’s part and being her body double for the showings at the end of the development. 

I had previously worked with Karul through my internship with BlakDance and earlier in the year as a cast member for Adelaide Fringe. Having this prior experience and established relationships with Karul made it a lot easier coming into the development. Karul has a distinct style they use and this meant it wasn’t completely foreign to me and I could focus on the choreography instead of technique. This show, while still a contemporary dance work, features a lot of dialogue. My training hasn’t included any acting or script work so I felt apprehensive for the first read through. I was more comfortable when I knew Taree would still deliver her lines and I would purely be her body double. Even with the pressure removed regarding lines I was still able to learn acting techniques and expand my knowledge of script work.

Being Taree’s body double required me to learn her solo and group choreography, while she was still delivering her lines. These transitions between us had to be seamless and were choreographed so my movement integrated in a way that didn’t take away from the audience's experience. I had to be adaptable and agile to the needs of the choreographer, standing in for others when needed. This process has strengthened my  versatility and adaptability as a dance artist. While I was learning the choreography, the group sections were prioritised over solos, which resulted in me learning Taree’s Solo the day before the showing. This is not an uncommon occurrence in the industry, and I was glad I had the skills to learn and perform the solo to the company’s expectations. 

This secondment was more involved than most and offered me a great learning experience. Learning the choreography and stylistic markers of the company only adds to my capability and versatility for future work. I felt this secondment also strengthened my relationship with Karul as an artist and has the potential to lead to future work. Weredingo involved a significant amount of dialogue, which offered me exposure to a genre that I don’t have much experience with, ultimately adding to my skill set. I had been wanting to push myself to try genres like physical theatre to expand my knowledge, despite not being entirely comfortable with that skill set. A real highlight of this experience was performing in the community showing on the final day. It felt like there was a performance outcome aspect which most secondments don’t have. Having such a supportive audience of Mob was really reassuring. 

Amy Weatherall

In April 2021, Karul completed a two week creative development for their latest work Weredingo. A show about people exploring the cultural and social aspects of shape shifting in the modern world, Weredingo is full of beautiful choreography and laughter-filled script work, as well as serious moments of self reflection and thought provoking images.  As one of BlakDance’s Associate Artists, I was lucky enough to be invited to participate in a secondment for the two week period and step in for Taree’s dance solo in an industry showing at the completion of the development.

This was my first opportunity to work with Karul as a company, so I was coming into rehearsals without any knowledge of their creative processes and choreographic style. I was very quickly put at ease as the dynamic of this close knit company was incredibly welcoming, and all of the dancers were eager to share and learn from one another. This made stepping out of my comfort zone a lot easier when it came to learning lines and working through a script. The show weaves in and out of dance segments, as the cast act out scenes filled with powerful stories and monologues. Whilst I didn’t have to memorise any speaking parts for my performance in the industry showing, it was a great opportunity to test my retention skills when running lines with the other performers.  Each day we got to watch as the characters were fleshed out, found their voices and began fixing the inner turmoil of past traumas. We had the chance to watch the show come together before our eyes, pick up the choreography and learn all about what goes on behind the scenes of creating a dance work.

As a dancer myself, it was interesting to see how certain elements of choreography fit onto a range of performers with varying levels of technique and experience.  Learning Taree’s solo was a good challenge for me, as it was a style of choreography that I don’t tend to work in.  It was great being able to learn the group pieces as well; and getting to stand in for Tom or Taree when they needed to see how the piece was progressing, made me feel as though I was helping with the creative process.  This secondment was different from a lot of the other secondments I’ve participated in with professional companies.  Usually there’s an expectation that we keep to the side lines and observe more than dance with the company.  On the special occasions that you would get to learn choreography, it was never anywhere near as much as we did with Karul.  At Karul I felt completely immersed in the creation of the show; I learnt as much of the choreography as I wanted to and was able to stand in for cast members when the need arose.  Unlike other secondments, I also had the chance to perform with the company in an industry showing.  This helped give me a goal to work toward at the end of the two weeks and allowed me to continually push myself to work hard each day so that I could make sure my part in the performance was up to the standard that Karul expected.

The Associate Artist Pathway Program is funded through Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE) Fund – an Australian Government initiative.