Taking Stock Of A Northern Paradise

Sydney Morning Herald

Tuesday November 17, 1987

AILSA CARPENTER

'IT took us 80 miles and three kangaroos to get here, but it was worth it" -two members of the audience following a Cloncurry performance by Dance North, a contemporary dance company based in Townsville.

Sydney will have the opportunity of seeing this dynamic young company during the Festival of Sydney. It opens at the Seymour Centre on January 2 with three dance-theatre works, titled Sun-Hunters.

Dance North evolved from the North Queensland Ballet and Dance Society formed 17 years ago. In 1973 the first modest Australia Council grant was awarded and used to finance professional guest artists, thus allowing a nucleus to undertake schools' work and perform in other centres. In 1984 the board jettisoned classical ballet and formed a contemporary company. This meant they could become professional and attain much greater mobility.

Cheryl Stock, originally from Adelaide and known nationally as a dancer, choreographer and teacher, had been a guest choreographer with the company in 1983. At the end of 1984 she was offered the artistic directorship of the new group.

"My vision was to produce all new Australian contemporary work," said Stock. "I insisted on a full-time general manager and production manager, that dancers be paid award rates - even if that meant working for only six months -and that we wouldn't work under terrible conditions. We are now into our fourth season, working nine months of the year and able to keep six dancers for two years in a row. We have been able to attract some of the best Australian choreographers - such as Garth Welch, Jacqui Carroll, Graeme Watson- which in turn attracts really good dancers."

Dance North, which performs throughout northern and central Queensland and the Northern Territory, travels to 26 places a year, spending up to a week in each place. During that week up to 10 workshops may take place in the schools, but all performances are presented in a theatre.

"We tour to more places than any other small company of any sort," said Stock. "We do not do one-night stands and I sometimes get a lot of flak for that, but I stick to my guns. It is important that students see really good quality work under good conditions. Country audiences are not stupid, contrary to what a lot of city people think."

Stock's empathy with her surroundings is reflected in the company's work -Heatwave, Birds of Paradise, Mangoes, Summer, and Ochre Dusk.

Sun-Hunters, a Bicentennial project, is a very ambitious program for a small company. A dance theatre work in three sections, it celebrates North Queensland's unique and world heritage treasures.

The opening section is Reef, a lyrical piece choreographed by Townsville-born New Yorker Ray Cook, to a poetic score by Andrew Thomas Wilson.

The central section is a highly stylised movement theatre work directed by Kim Carpenter and choreographed by Aku Kadogo. Stock has been persuaded to return to the stage to play the part of the Passenger.

Blair Greenberg is the composer for both Passenger and the final section of the program, Sun-Hunters, an aerial dance work set in two grids of ropes to evoke the vertical and horizontal layers of the rainforest. The dancers trained for two months in rope-climbing techniques on the obstacle course at Lavarack Army Barracks in Townsville.

Following the Sydney Festival season, Dance North will tour the program to Vietnam, Burma, Laos and Thailand at the invitation of the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Stock and her equally energetic general manager, Lorna Hempstead, set out with a strategic five-year plan which is taking the company forward at a fast rate.

Will Stock continue on in North Queensland? The answer is an emphatic"Yes," even though at times she feels culturally isolated.

"I feel freer here. I get my motivation and images from what is around me. And it is fantastic for me that such experienced people have come up north to create Sun-Hunters."

© 1987 Sydney Morning Herald

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