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| Dance4Me in action. |
Produced and Directed by Liz Lea
Belconnen Arts Centre – 22nd and 23rd
November 2024
Performance on November 22nd reviewed by BILL
STEPHENS.
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| The fresh Funk team in action. |
Canberra is rich in dance activity. Local professional dance companies and highly regarded dance schools offer pathways for those aspiring to a professional dance career.
The annual Ausdance Youth Dance Festivals offer opportunities
for school and college students to discover the excitement of performing in the
Canberra Theatre under the same conditions as major dance companies both
national and international, while QL2 Dance has a focus on nurturing aspiring
dance makers.
For those wishing to hone their dance skills without
necessarily embarking on a professional career, there are several local musical
theatre companies producing high quality productions of popular musicals happy
to embrace those ambitions.
There is a lesser-known genre of community dance
organisations devoted to exploring the transformative power of dance in all its
many forms including well-being and self-expression as well as a pathway to intercultural
and intergenerational inclusiveness.
It is this genre of dance that has attracted the attention
of the indefatigable Liz Lea, an acclaimed professional dancer who devotes her
considerable talents each year into producing and directing the Stellar Lineup
at the Belconnen Arts Centre to showcase its practitioners.
Among the groups being showcased in this year’s Stellar
Lineup, sub-titled Olympic Edition, were Project Dust. an emerging First Nations dance group, Dance4me,
Taylor Mingle Dancers, ZEST Dance for Wellbeing, the GOLD Company, Deaf
Butterflies, Fresh Funk and the Chamaeleon Collective.
With her directorial hat firmly in place and inspired by
this year’s Paris Olympics, Lea cleverly wove the efforts of this disparate collection
of participants into a cohesive pageant about the achievements of athletes
participating in the Paralympics over the years, with particular emphasis on Paralympians
from the ACT region.
Dispensing with a Master of Ceremonies in favour of a continuous giant video screen presentation featuring item titles, archival film, photographs and ambiance images, the program commenced with a spectacular massed acknowledgement of country led by Project Dust, an emerging First Nations dance group.
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| Chamaeleon Collective performing "Ballgames". |
Chamaeleon Collective got the ball rolling (so to speak) with a playful piece entitled “Ballgames” which explored the numerous events which utilise balls.
ZEST Dance for Wellbeing
drew on the Olympic Circles for their graceful presentation, seated on chairs
arranged in two circles and performed to the theme from “Chariots of Fire”.
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| ZEST Dance for Wellbeing performing "Chariots of Fire" |
Dressed in white the Chamaeleon Collective and Deaf
Butterflies performed representations of other sports while the GOLDS after
entering to the sublime music of the duet from the opera “Lakme” reduced the
audience to giggles with their cheeky performance of “The Ball is in Your
Court”.
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| GOLD Company performing "The Ball is in Your Court" |
Interspersed among the group presentations were several tributes to local Paralympians, the most recent of whom was legally blind cyclist Lindy Hou.
A film presentation outlined the amazing sporting career of
Paralympian, Daphne Hilton who commenced her career by winning 6 of the 10
medals won by the Australian Paralympic team at the 1960 Olympics in Rome. Her
daughter Rachel delighted the audience by taking a bow on her mother’s behalf.
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| Rachael Hilton in a tribute to the mother Paralympian, Daphne Hilton. |
Another highlight was the surprise appearance of Commonwealth Games Gold Medallist and Athletics’ Australia Female Athlete with a Disability of the Year in 2009 – 2010, Louise Ellery, who, following an inspiring video of her speech at the 2016 Rio Paralympics, received an enthusiastic ovation from the audience when she too took the stage.
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| Paralympian Louise Ellery accepts an audience ovation. |
But this was a night of highlights, and given the varying abilities of the participants, the emphasis was on participation and inclusion, even so the Taylor Mingle Dancers, a team of nine burly Sikhs, each wearing a brightly coloured turban, led by two demure women, one of whom was Lea herself an acknowledged expert exponent of Indian dance, and the Fresh Funk Team with its dazzling, meticulously drilled break dancing ,were stand-outs in a fascinating program.
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| Liz Lea takes a bow. |
Under the guidance of Liz Lea, who not only produced and directed the show but could be spotted performing with the Taylor Mingals, the Chamaeleon Collective and Project Dust, the 2024 Stella Line-up proved a heart-warming exposition of the diversity of community dance activity in the ACT and the enthusiasm, resilience and inclusiveness of those who participate in it.
If you weren’t there this year, watch out for it in 2025. It is one of the more unique and inspiring highlights of the Canberra Dance calendar.
All images by O & J Wikner Photography.
