Licitis

Tell us about your biggest hopes for dance. Where do you see it taking you?

Oh geezus! That’s a question and a half (haha). I have a mind map of what I want to happen, but I obviously didn’t anticipate this whole lockdown situation, so school hasn’t been on for about a month at the moment. How all this turns out will determine what I’m doing at the beginning of next year. Overall, I want to perform in Melbourne with a show called Matador. It’s a show about fusion, which is my favourite sort of thing! It combines commercial, hip hop, and contemporary: sort of everything into one. I want to do shows like that! I also want to teach and start my own company and school!

Who are your biggest idols?

I think I’ve taken bits and pieces from everyone who has taught me. For example, when I’m doing improv, mucking around or being a bit crazy, it’s when I would most be like Fabrice and do what he taught me (haha). I take that on and make it my own by adding things like shapes, and mess around with musicality! My whole idea of dance and what I always believe is that anyone can dance. There’s not really any bad movement because normally when you do something bad, it helps you make something better! You might even like a tiny bit of that and then it helps you form something else that you really like, which is kind of what Eternal Dance teaches, that anyone can dance. So I’ve kind of taken from everyone.

Is dance choreography something you do?

Ah, I still rather improv because it’s something I’ve done for ages and it’s what I’m most comfortable with. First time I got introduced to that was at Eternal by Fabrice in his classes. At school we do that a lot. It’s stressful because people teach differently: everyone has to look the same, but someone’s movement on someone else’s body will look completely different on my body! Obviously there’s different levels of expertise between people as well. It’s stressful, but it’s still fun, and it’s a good challenge. It’s one of those things that for me personally, I’ve had to take head on and just figure out. I still much rather improv, which in Melbourne is the opposite to a lot of other people! They’re coming from dance schools and that sort of thing, so they’re used to choreography. They find improv similar to how I find choreography (haha)! It’s really interesting that dynamic; coming from a place where everyone learnt improv versus starting from a place with choreography. Then when you’re told to ‘just dance’, it’s really hard!

What would you say to people who think they can’t dance?

That’s the thing; I think dance is learnt and I’ve taught people improv before where we’ve just taken movements that they’ve learnt in choreography and mashed up their favourite parts. That’s technically improv. It’s just about experimenting. Even walking, you can make something out of that! Anyone can dance when you think about it; you just have to get creative with it. People are often scared to try something new because they think they’re going to be bad at it, but you’re going to be bad at anything you start because you’ve never done it before! That’s how it rolls. But if you keep doing it, you’ll get better. That’s the most important thing, whether it’s about dance or anything else. Just keep doing it!