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Canberra Today 14°/16° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Arts / Liz has another shot at being Bold

Tasmanian indigenous dance identity Vicki Van Hout… to perform Plenty serious: Talk Talk” at QL2. Photo, Heidrun Lohr

DANCER Liz Lea has been grappling with one of the unfathomable questions in the arts – how to repeat the success of her first festival “Bold”.

Whether second novel, second play or second festival, finding something new to say is always a problem, but in coming up with the answers, the 2017 “CityNews” Artist of the Year’s found herself looking way ahead.

In 2017, it was through sheer force of personality that Lea inveigled our national institutions into hosting a high-level summit of dance that saw stars from Meryl Tankard to the Australian Ballet’s David McAllister descend on Canberra and a good number of practitioners from overseas, too.

A mixture of talks, symposia, film screenings and dance performances, “Bold I” showed the way to a deeper understanding of dance and she’s doing it again, with “Bold II”, five days of workshops, performances, talks, forums and film showings.

As well, this time round they are coinciding with the Balloon Festival, the lighting-up part of Enlighten and Art Not Apart.

“I wouldn’t be running this if it wasn’t in Canberra; we’re lucky to have the national institutions and people are not aware of how much dance there is in Canberra, so many strengths,” she says.

“I don’t want to have a theme, because I might get stuck with it. I think the legacy of dance is enough, but what I’d like to do is what they do in Sydney – take the strongest works.”

She’s not as far away from following a theme as she might think, for this year’s offerings contain a demonstrable emphasis on inclusivity and a strong indigenous component.

Forthright Tasmanian indigenous dance identity Vicki Van Hout, will perform “Plenty serious: Talk Talk” at QL2 Theatre, while also speaking at the conference, which will run at the National Library over two days. Marilyn Miller, the indigenous dance co-ordinator of the national strategy, “Treading the Pathways” will give a keynote address.

Lea’s own work with inclusivity is well-known. In “Bold II”, senior dance or “elders” as she calls them, will be stepping out as “GOLD – growing old disgracefully” troupe and Off Beat both from the ACT, Agile not Fragile from NSW, “Fine Lines” from Victoria and MADE (Mature Artists Dance Experience) from Tasmania seize the limelight.

Her personal history with Asian/Indian dance is seen in an Asian focus. Javanese dancer Didik Hadiprayitno will be visiting, and she’s assembled an Indian dance contingent she is proud of in Bharatanatyam dancer Suhasini Sumithra, Aspara Arts, Divyusha Polepalli, Vanaja Dasika, Ira Patkar, with Canberra’s Padma Menon giving a second keynote address.

The conference running on March 14 and 15 at the National Library with performances by artists including Anca Frankenhauser, Marnie and Melanie Palomares and Debora di Centa.

Among the most intriguing offerings in “Bold I” was a film about dancer Patrick Harding Irmer and now dancer-filmmaker Sue Healey, former director of Vis-A-Vis Dance Canberra, will be showing her film, “Solitude,” about Harding Irmer’s wife, the dancer Anca Francenhauser.

Other films on the program are Gail Hewton’s short “In a Different Space” featuring 101-year-old Jack Floyd, “A Portrait of a Shearer” by Alison Plevey and excerpts from “On View: Japan and Weerewa” by Elizabeth Cameron Dalman and Dancecology Taiwan.

Parliament House has come on board to host “One Giant Step” on March 16, inspired by the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, featuring more than 300 Fresh Funk urban dancers, Hilal Dance, QL2 Dance, The Brolgas, 4G elders company and the Stellar Arts Company. On the cosmic theme, three special needs groups will come together for the first time to perform “Space Odyssey”.

“Bold II,” at the NLA, NFSA, NGA, NPG, QL2 Dance, Dickson Tradies and McKellar Ridge Winery, March 13-17. Book at stickytickets.com.au

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Helen Musa

Helen Musa

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