Choreographers L - R: Chloe Curtis - Akira Byrne - Maya Wille-Bellchambers - Jahna Lugnan Gigi Rohrlach - Lucia Morabito.
Mentors: Alice Lee Holland, Emma Batchelor
Costume co-ordination: Natalie Wade, Linda Uzubalis
Sound mastering Kimmo Vennonen – Lighting support: Owen
Davies, Sidestage.
A Block Theatre, Gorman Arts Centre, 13th, 14th
December 2025.
Performance on 13th December reviewed by BILL
STEPHENS.
Introducing this year’s edition of the Emerging
Choreographer’s Program, Artistic Director and CEO, Alice Lee Holland revealed
that QL2 Dance would undergo a name change to Quantum Leap Australia, with this
program being the first under its new name.
Holland also mentioned later, that in her mentoring, she had
encouraged the choreographers, who’s ages ranged from 16 to 19 years, not to
concentrate on producing a polished final work, but rather to use the
opportunity to test their ability to express complex ideas through dance.
The Emerging Choreographer’s Program is an annual program
that provides young Quantum Leap artists with the opportunity to create their
own original short dance work.
They are guided through the process by professional mentors,
this year Alice Lee Holland and Emma Batchelor, provided with rehearsal space
and access to dancers, but all decisions regarding concepts, costuming,
lighting, music and direction of their dancers are their own.
This year, all the emerging choreographers participated as
dancers in at least one other work by another of the choreographers. One
explaining in the Q & A following the performances, that this had proved a
helpful strategy with her own problem solving.
For interested audiences, how the aspiring choreographers’ embrace
this opportunity, and the topics chosen for their dance work, can be
fascinating.
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| Quantum Leap Australia dancers perform METAMORPHOSIS by Maya Wille-Bellchambers |
18-year-old Maya Willie-Bellchambers has already been accepted into VCA for study next year. Although she has participated in the ECP previously, “Metamorphosis” is the first work she has created alone.
Inspired by her interest in mental illness, she drew her
inspiration from the transformation of caterpillar to butterfly, to express
feelings of entrapment.
For her ambitious work, five dancers, costumed in semi-business attire, remained expressionless as they worked closely together to create unsettling visuals, during which their fingers were constantly wriggling.
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| Quantum Leap Australian dancers perform "MIRAGE OF MEMORIES" by Lucia Morabito |
First time participant in the ECP, Lucia Morabito also utilised five dancers for her work intitled “Mirage of Memories” with which she explored notions around personal and collective perceptions of memory.
Created in four distinct chapters, her dancers languidly paraded,
formed graceful groups, or simply sat as if sunbaking, as they watched one or
more of their number scrawl words on the wall behind them.
Indefinite and
undimmed – Crossroads/Naïve Desperations – In Grievance Of Its Shape –
Comicality Of My Recollections, began to cover the wall. And while the words meant little to this
viewer, it was difficult not to be captivated by the lyrical mood created by
the movement and soundtrack which included a lovely version of the song
“Stairway to the Stars”.
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| Quantum Leap Australia dancers performing BREATHING STATUES by Gigi Rohrlach. |
A similar mood was evoked by Gigi Rohrlach’s lovely creation,” Breathing Statues”. To the music of nature sounds mixed with Masakatsu Takagi and Rosalia, Rohrlach joined dancers, Akira Byrne, Anna Maksimova, and Coral Onn to perform a graceful work featuring gentle unison movement and poses to elicit visions of forgotten statues in an overgrown forest.
While the choreography may not have been groundbreaking, it
was certainly lovely to watch and perfectly chosen for its purpose.
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| Quantum Leap Australia dancers perform "CHOROPHOBIA" by Chloe Curtis |
Although 16-year-old Chloe Curtis has been participating as a dancer in ECP’s since 2022, this is the first time she has been involved as a choreographer.
Challenging herself with a difficult subject, fear of
phobia, she worked with six dancers to create, “Chorophobia” exploring six
different psychological reactions to fear.
Very well performed by the dancers, to a nervy, well-chosen
soundtrack mix, the work had the dancers reacting to flashing lights while performing
slithering movements, spasms, twitches and at times, simply rocking gently to
evoke their responses to the various criteria.
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| Jahna Lugnam performing in "THE SHAPE OF ME IS CHANGING by Akira Byrne |
18- year-old Akira Byrne was awarded a Canberra Critics Circle Award for the extraordinary solo work she created and performed during the 2024 ECP.
This year she challenged herself further by joining dancers
Jahna Lugnan, Coral Onn, Marlon Clode, Juliette Feerick and Reuben Reynolds to deliver
her own original poetry in her work exploring physical confines and living with
pain, “the shape of me is shifting”.
Performed to Harland Rust’s, “I’m Sending Conrad Away”, the
work was remarkable for its imagery and an extraordinary performance by Jahna
Lugnan. Already a charismatic dancer, Byrne is exhibiting the potential to
become an extraordinary dance creator.
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| Quantum Leap Australia dancers perform "THE DOG SHOWS NO CONCERN" by Jahna Lugnan |
The final work of the program, intriguingly entitled, “The Dog Shows No Concern” was created by Jahna Lugnan, participating in her fourth ECP, and her third time as a choreographer.
Setting out to resist audience expectations and inspired by
the David Byrne book “American Utopia”, this work featured a surprise at every
turn.
At its heart is a very funny choreography performed to a
version of Bizet’s “Habanera” written for his opera “Carmen”, but in this
version, performed po-faced by the dancers, with inventive, and very funny
choreography that resisted any reference to the opera.
Delightfully entertaining, it proved a perfect way to end
the program, leaving this reviewer looking forward to seeing more work from
this choreographer.
Throughout, the Emerging Choreographers Program 2025 proved impressive
for the attention to the production elements, costuming, lighting and sound, for
the commitment and skill of the dancers, and for the ingenuity and imagination
of the fledgling choreographers.
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| Quantum Leap Australia dancer performing in "MIRAGE OF MEMORIES" by Lucia Morabito. Photos by Olivier Wikner, O & J Wikner Photography. |
