Common Ground program

Chunky Move presents

By Anouk van Dijk

Amongst everything, is also just us.

CREDITS

A NOTE FROM OUR ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Concept, Choreography & Direction Anouk van Dijk Created for and with performers Richard Cilli, Tara Jade Samaya Lighting Design Paul Jackson Set & Costume Design Marg Horwell Composer & Sound Design Jethro Woodward

Welcome to Chunky Move and thank you for coming to see our new work, Common Ground.

Production Manager Mikkel Mynster Stage Manager Natalie Rowan Artistic Associate Alice Lee Holland Dancer Secondments Isabelle Beauverd, Christina Guieb, Jeremy Beck Front of House Manager Adam Rogers Campaign Photography Jeff Busby Rehearsal & Production Photography Pia Johnson Duration Approximately 60 minutes, no interval Chunky Move acknowledges the Yalukit Willam Peoples of the Boon Wurrung, the Traditional Owners of the land on which Chunky Move Studios stands, and we pay our respects to Melbourne’s First Peoples, to their ancestors past and present, and to our shared future.

Image: Pia Johnson

I have spent the past weeks in our studio with two of Australia’s foremost contemporary dancers, Tara Jade Samaya and Richard Cilli. Together, we looked at the duet form as both a utopian ideal and a display of the inherent complexity that partnerships bring.

happened to the course of history, the way we fight our battles, value our societies and shape our humanity through art?

In Common Ground, Tara and Richard can be seen as colleague dancers, co-dreamers, co-inhabitants of an abstracted world. A reminiscence of our shared history and current states lives on in their bodies, the music, the costumes, the lights.

Fascinated by the feuds between Common Ground has become a poetic study on similarity, political leaders on the national equality, defining territory and and international stage, and shifting grounds, testing the the public celebrations of their tension between the support own reign, I’ve been exploring we need and the restrictions of the dynamics of power. codependency. Their duet can My explorations took me back be seen as a celebration, a to the 17th century and the utopian ideal of togetherness. birth of ballet. In the court of The shoulder to lean on needs Louis XIV, dance - for the first a reciprocal shoulder in return, time in history - was staged holding each other in a as a spectacle used to solidify constantly changing equilibrium. absolute monarchy, with King Louis dancing the lead role I look forward to seeing you on his own. In a time where during the season at Chunky equality is more than ever on Move Studios, the home of the political agenda, I imagined Chunky Move. what would have happened if Louis XIV had been performing — Anouk van Dijk with an equally strong female in the lead. How would it have shaped our ideas around power and gender? What would have

‘No matter how far apart we may be from another person or another entity, that separateness from them is an illusion or a construction that we have put there in place, that’s not inherent we only choose to believe that. We can find common ground anywhere.’

— Richard Cilli

Image: Pia Johnson

BIOGRAPHIES

Anouk van Dijk Concept, Direction & Choreography

Tara Jade Samaya Performer

Richard Cilli Performer

Paul Jackson Lighting Design

Anouk van Dijk is the Artistic Director of Chunky Move. She is a choreographer, director, dancer and the creator behind the movement system Countertechnique.

Tara Jade Samaya has worked under the directorship of Anouk Van Djik at Chunky Move since 2012 and has previously performed in Chunky Move’s Anti-Gravity (2017), Rule of Thirds (2016), Depth of Field (2015), Complexity of Belonging (2014), 247 Days and Embodiment 1:1:1 (2013). She was Artistic Associate at Chunky Move for 2016.

Tara performed with the Douglas Wright Company in The Kiss Inside (2016) and has previously performed with the Australian Dance Theatre under the Artistic Directorship of Garry Stewart for Proximity (2013), Be Your Self (2012), Worldhood (2011), G (2008/09) and Devolution (2007). Her performances in Be Your Self and Proximity saw her nominated for the Helpmann Award for Best Female Dancer in a Dance or Physical Theatre Production in 2010 and 2012 respectively.

In 2018 Tara received a Green Room Award nomination for Female Dance Performer for Be Your Self. In 2017 Tara received the Australian Dance Award, ‘Outstanding achievement in dance on film’ for The Samaya Wives. In 2016, Tara and Pippa Samaya’s collective Ubuntu Samaya won first prize in the international 60secondsdance film competition for The Knowledge Between Us in both Finland and Denmark. They also won the judges choice for ‘best film’ at FAD Festival USA for Pick Yourself Up, and their film Photosynthesise (2015) gained an honorable mention in the Wood and Humanity international film competition. Tara completed a full time course in Classical Ballet at the Marie-Walton Mahon Dance Academy and continued her studies at the Western Australian Academy of the Performing Arts.

Helpmann Award-winning dancer and choreographer Richard Cilli trained at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts where he undertook an exchange to Taipei National University of the Arts and graduated as Most Outstanding Student.

Cilli joined Sydney Dance Company in 2009 and in 2010 won the Helpmann Award for Best Male Dancer for his performance in Rafael Bonachela’s We Unfold. He has danced for Lucy Guerin Inc, STRUT Dance Inc and various independent choreographers around Australia, as well as Kenneth Kvarnström at Kulturhuset Stadsteatern in Stockholm. As a choreographer he has made works for Sydney Dance Company, the Australian Ballet and STRUT Dance Inc among others. His recent work That Was Then, performed by the 2017 graduating class of WAAPA, was described as ‘an illuminating, inventive, absorbing reflection of shared dance experiences.’ – Dance Australia. 2015 saw Cilli return to Sydney Dance Company. He recently performed in Rafael Bonachela’s Frame of Mind, William Forsythe’s Quintett, De Novo (2015), New Breed (2015), Triptych (2015), CounterMove and Hinterland as part of New Breed at Carriageworks (2016). Frame of Mind won the 2015 Helpmann Award for ‘Best Choreography in a Dance Work’ and ‘Best Dance Work’.

Cilli continues to perform and create around Australia and is also undertaking his Countertechnique teacher training. This is Richard Cilli’s Chunky Move debut.

Paul has designed lighting for most of Australia’s leading performing arts companies and has lectured in design at the University of Melbourne, RMIT University and the Victorian College of the Arts. His work has featured in festivals and programmes in the United States, Asia, Europe and the United Kingdom. Paul was listed in in The Bulletin’s Smart 100 for 2004, was the Gilbert Spottiswood Churchill Fellow for 2007 and was an Artistic Associate at Malthouse Theatre from 2007-2013. He has received a Helpmann Award, six Green Room Awards, a Sydney Theatre Award and two Australian Production Design Guild Awards.

Paul was awarded an Australia Council Fellowship (Theatre) for 2017-2019.

In October 2012, Van Dijk premiered her debut work, An Act of Now, for Chunky Move, the third production in her ongoing Mensch series.

The production went on to win The Age Critics’ Award for best new Australian work in the Melbourne Festival. For the Company she has since created 247 Days and Embodiment 1:1:1 (2013), gentle is the power and the Falk Richter collaborative work Complexity of Belonging (2014). Van Dijk’s site specific work Depth of Field premiered in 2015, followed by Rule of Thirds and L U C I D (2016) and she collaborated with Singaporean video artist Ho Tzu Nyen for Anti-Gravity (2017) as part of the inaugural Asia Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts (Asia TOPA).

Before relocating to Australia, Van Dijk had an extensive career in Europe, touring worldwide with her Dutch company anoukvandijk dc, performing at the world’s leading festivals and venues including Festival d’Avignon, Adelaide Festival, Sydney Opera House, MASS MoCA, Perth International Arts Festival, Dance Triennale Tokyo, American Dance Festival and Festival TransAmériques. Van Dijk’s long collaborative partnership with German writer and director Falk Richter has resulted in the creation of six critically: acclaimed productions that have toured in Europe and internationally.

In 2012, Van Dijk was awarded the Golden Swan (Gouden Zwaan) – the Netherlands’ most prestigious dance accolade – in recognition of her outstanding artistic and academic contribution to dance in her home country.

BIOGRAPHIES

Image: Jeff Busby

Marg Horwell Set & Costume Design

Jethro Woodward Composer & Sound Design

Marg is a multi-award winning set and costume designer. Most recently she designed costumes for THE RESISTIBLE RISE OF ARTURO UI (Sydney Theatre Company).

Marg has also designed set and costumes for Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again, The Testament of Mary, The Real and Imagined History of the Elephant Man, The Homosexuals or Faggots, Edward II, I Am A Miracle, and The Good Person of Szechuan (Malthouse Theatre), Animal (InFlux Theatre), Lilith The Jungle Girl (Sisters Grimm/Melbourne Theatre Company); Peddling, Cock, Constellations, Music, Birdland, I Call my Brothers (Melbourne Theatre Company); Resplendence, Chapters from the Pandemic, Save for Crying, Wretch (Angus Cerini Doubletap); Big Heart, Shit, Savages (Dee & Cornelius); Eight Gigabytes of Hardcore Pornography (Griffin Theatre Company/Perth Theatre Company); Ophelia Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (Bell Shakespeare Company/Chamber Made Opera); Nora, La Traviata (Belvoir); Marlin (Arena Theatre/ Melbourne Theatre Company); Team of Life (KAGE Physical Theatre). Marg was Designer in Residence for Malthouse Theatre in 2017.

Jethro Woodward is a Melbourne-based composer, musical director, arranger, musician and sound designer recognised for his expansive and highly layered film, theatre and dance scores. A multi Green Room Award winner and Helpmann nominee he has worked with some of Australia’s leading major and independent companies including Malthouse Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company, Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Opera Victoria, Chamber Made Opera, Back to Back, Chunky Move, Lucy Guerin Inc, Australian Dance Theatre, Aphids, Stuck Pigs Squealing, Rawcus, KAGE and more. Jethro regularly tours his work internationally and has won Green Room Awards for his work on; Song for a Weary Throat (Rawcus), For The Ones Who Walk Away (St. Martins), The Bloody Chamber (Malthouse Theatre), Moth (Malthouse Theatre / Arena Theatre), Goodbye Vaudeville Charlie Mudd (Malthouse Theatre / Arena Theatre) and Irony Is Not Enough (Fragment 31). Jethro was the recipient of the 2018 Green Room Technical Achievement Award.

Image: Pia Johnson

‘When we have true compassion and empathy for someone else’s state of being and for it to be… endless and equal and continually ever impermanent, I feel like that’s common ground.’

— Tara Jade Samaya

ABOUT CHUNKY MOVE

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CHUNKY MOVE BOARD

Chunky Move is Victoria’s flagship contemporary dance company. Over the past 20 years it has earned an enviable reputation for producing a distinctly unpredictable brand of genre-defying performance. Led by internationally-acclaimed choreographer Anouk van Dijk, Chunky Move’s multi-tiered programming initiatives underpin a vibrant dance culture in Melbourne, creating popular productions for national and international presentation.

The Company has toured to 40 countries and 117 cities and its international collaborations have become an essential part of its identity.

Chunky Move is a not-for-profit organisation and the impact of your donation is as powerful as our dancers on the stage.

Leigh O’Neill (Chair), Anouk van Dijk, Michelle Brooks, Sue Donnelly, Rhod Ellis-Jones, Rose Hiscock, Sean Jameson, Jeff Khan, Sue Morgan

Chunky Move believes in providing opportunities and creative challenges for dance artists at every stage of their career.

To this end, the Company runs an extensive program of development initiatives for performers and choreographers, including the celebrated Next Move program, which commissions new works by independent choreographers.

Heartfelt thanks to our current supporters: The Angior Family Foundation, Michael Agar, Roya Alma Azadi, Jane Badler-Hains, Mary Barlow, Jeremy Blackshaw, Hans Brinckmann, Michelle Brooks, Jodi Burley, Jackson Clements Burrows, John Carr, Min Li Chong, Gordon Conochie, Anouk van Dijk, Jerry Remkes, Annie Dawson, Sylwia Dinehin, Sue Donnelly, Rhod Ellis-Jones, Nelson Estrella and Phil Rounsevell, Caroline Farmer, Rosemary Forbes and Ian Hocking, Helen Forrester, David Geoffrey Hall, Heidi Groen, Rose Hiscock and Virginia Lovett Sean Jameson, Cameron Lewis, Pamela and Adrian Lombardo, Aneka Manners, Lucy Mariani, Moira Millar, Victor Sojo Monzon, Sue Morgan, Gaye Murray, Jacqueline O’Brien, Anthony Oliver, Collette O’Neill, Leigh O’Neill, Margaret Parker, Roger Poole, Laure Pradier, Phoebe Preuss, Jacqueline Rose, Suzana Ristevski, Matthew Self, Helga Svendsen, Li-Hsin Serene Tan, Naum Tered, Rosemary Walls, Karen Weiss, Sue Westwood, Claire Wilcock, and those donors who choose to remain anonymous.

Our donors help us to: • bring our ambitious productions to life • tour productions in Australia and the world • fund our dancer and choreographer development programs • develop and deliver our education and youth engagement workshops Donations over $2 are 100% tax-deductible and all donations, large or small, make a huge difference to the company.

CHUNKY MOVE STAFF Artistic Director & co-CEO Anouk van Dijk Executive Director & co-CEO Vanessa Pigrum Interim Company Producer Sarah Greentree Artistic Associate & Public Programs Coordinator Alice Lee Holland Marketing & Communications Manager Emily Fiori Marketing & Communications Coordinator Robert Henningham Interim Development Manager Claire Wilcock Production Manager Mikkel Mynster Production Coordinator Angus Robson Finance Administrator Sarah Rafferty Front of House Manager Adam Rogers Publicity Magda Petkoff, Purple Media Front of House Staff Annabelle Balharry, Hillary Goldsmith, Ben Hurley, Caroline Scales, Andrew Treloar, Jasmin Treloar Front of House Volunteers Klari Agar, Matilda Butler Webb, Andi Gehrke, Karen Larazenko, Philip Kent-Hughes, Alex Papanotas, Rhys Ryan, Josephine Zito SPECIAL THANKS Mike Giesser, Jerry Remkes, Ben Ryan and Rock Posters Australia and Mr Moto

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Chunky Move is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body; and supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.

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