IN|FORM | You Want To Dance Like Common People?
Contributed by Neridah Waters, Independent Dance Artist
I’ve heard so many stories from people saying that they got to a certain stage with their dance training and a teacher has told them that they don’t have the right body/facility/turn out/height etc. to be a dancer and then they have stopped dancing. I don’t believe that dance is only for the elite and I am trying to change that view among the general public.
I took ballet and jazz classes from 5-16 but stopped when I became bodyconscious and thought dance was about being elegant, beautiful and taking yourself seriously. I fell into my current kind of work by accident - I trained as an actor but after graduating I gravitated toward physical theatre over text based work. Dancing with friends socially at clubs, I discovered that dance can be really funny or ugly and tell stories and that I could combine my love of clown and comedy and theatre into dance.
I performed in cabarets doing comical dance-based acts and got asked to choreograph dances for theatre on the strength of this. I wondered why they didn’t ask professional dancers but I think maybe my theatre training meant that I may have been coming at it from a different angle; one with an emphasis on story and character and an ability to translate movement for nonmovers in a fun way.
Much of the work I’m choreographing is for professional actors who aren’t dancers or for people in community projects with very little dance experience or with Queensland Music Festival on large scale communitybased projects in regional Queensland. Choreographing hundreds of school children, skaters, horses, tug-boats, senior-citizens, orchestras, cheerleaders, you name it.
In my classes I create a nonintimidating environment for people who may feel self-conscious; there’s lots of joking and I try to accommodate all ranges of movement - if a person can’t manage something in their body I will work with them to find what they can do that has the spirit of the move intended. I avoid using dance terms and invent comical names. Instead of saying left or right I’ll find things in the space that are on particular side of the room - if the toilets are on one side I’ll say “step on your toilet leg” or if there’s a picture of the Queen on the wall of a hall I’ll say “stretch out your Queen arm”. I supply half-time oranges in my classes - this helps build community - people always chat over food and it changes the context from a solo pursuit to that of a team.
This year I created ‘Common People Dance Eisteddfod’ - an ironic rock eisteddfod for all ages (3 to 83 years) and abilities (people who have never danced before to ex-professionals). I built four teams across Brisbane and arranged an outcome at Brisbane Festival in The Spiegeltent where all four teams competed for a giant crap-tastic trophy. The nostalgic and competitive elements as well as the emphasis on teamwork and community is the strongest example of my principal aim - helping people who think they can’t dance to dance and to find the joy of dancing with a big group of people.