or … What happens when you join forces with other “grown ups” to make a space for young people to create and own their dances
On Tuesday WEAVE and Seet Dance collaborated in making a short dance piece for presentation at the Annual Youth Awards being held at Redfern Townhall.
WEAVE is an organisation of amazing community leaders who support and nurture young people in the inner city. Many of the kids they work with have challenging home lives.
http://www.weave.org.au/b/index.php/contact/
This year, for the first time, dance was included in the awards ceremony and my Seet Dancers were invited by WEAVE to work alongside other young people and make original dances. The kids were given some very serious themes for the dances: suicide, substance abuse, bullying, and violence.
My young dancers, who are accomplished improvisors, started with simple choreographic devices … theme and variation, deconstruction, imagery.
(BTW, the age range in my crew is 10 to 12 years).
Then they decided to each choose an image of a common method of suicide–cutting, jumping, stabbing, hanging–and improvised dramatic and heart-felt solos. They created a wonderful dance work. It had power in its message and a coherent structure which supported the form beautifully.
The entire dance took about 6 hours to create. The kids used a track we put together that included a Seet Dance favourite “Blue Flowers” by Dr Octagon, which is both morbid and funky at the same time.
It was performed that evening along with two other works by different groups.
The Seet Dancers were mature, chillingly charismatic and inspirational. I am very proud of what they achieved and their confidence in being creators at such a tender age.
I hope that with great projects like this these young dancers will realise that, contrary to popular representations of dance in the media as a competitive individualistic endeavour, most art/dance making is a collaborative and symbiotic activity. A great life lesson as well.
A big shout out to all the staff at WEAVE … in particular Emmanuel Kostoglou who brainstormed the entire project, and Kylie Jones for her caring support and attention to the children. Kylie was one of 3 youth counsellors who were on hand during the entire process. They were emotional backup for the kids. Such an amazing group!
I am also delighted that Fenix Icatu, the street dance specialist at my dance school, was also involved in this project.
Charemaine Seet 