Champions program

FORM DANCE PROJECTS | AUSTRALIA | WORLD PREMIERE DIRECTED BY MARTIN DEL AMO

Photo: Heidrun Lรถhr

champions

CHAMPIONS

FORM DANCE PROJECTS | AUSTRALIA WORLD PREMIERE BAY 17 CARRIAGEWORKS 17–22 JANUARY 60 MINS

Concept and Direction Martin del Amo Choreography & Text Martin del Amo in collaboration with the dancers Associate Artist Miranda Wheen Dancers Sara Black, Kristina Chan, Cloé Fournier, Carlee Mellow, Sophia Ndaba, Rhiannon Newton, Katina Olsen, Marnie Palomares, Melanie Palomares, Kathryn Puie & Miranda Wheen Understudy Taree Sansbury Mascot Julie-Anne Long Commentator Mel McLaughlin Dramaturg Julie-Anne Long Composer Gail Priest Video Design Samuel James Lighting Design Karen Norris Set & Costume Design Clare Britton Training Consultant Ahilan Ratnamohan Photographer Heidrun Löhr Production Manager Mark Haslam Stage Manager Lillian U Executive Producer Annette McLernon Producer FORM Dance Projects Business Manager Sally Ebert

“Dancers are the cleverest with their feet, next are footballers” Johan Cruyff, soccer legend

SPECIAL THANKS

Chris Bath, Patron FORM Dance Projects; Pamela Thornton, FORM Chair; Narelle Lewis, Andrew Wreford, Prof. Peter Hutchings, Dr Garry Lester, Jessica Madden, Amanda Rose, Miranda Wheen, Alissa Bruce, FORM Board Members; Wesley Enoch, Fiona Winning, Vernon Guest & Whitney Eglington at Sydney Festival; Western Sydney Wanderers W-League, Norm Boardman (Head Coach, Western Sydney Wanderers W-League 2014-2015), Scott Hudson, Mark Jensen at The Western Sydney Wanderers; David Borger, Bruce McClelland at Sydney Business Chamber; Gretel Packer & the Packer Family Foundation; Robert Love, Sean Clarke and Riverside Theatres; Rebecca Grasso, Christopher Snelling, Sophia Kouyoumdjian at City of Parramatta; Pirtek Stadium and Venues NSW; Dr Donald Kuah, Sunita Sidhu, Natasha Melacrinis, Trent Salkavich at NSW Institute of Sport; Heidrun Löhr; Paul Clark, Tim Kliendienst & Belinda Rabe at Alphabet Studio; Lisa Barnes at Kabuku PR, Priyanka Martin (lighting assistant); Pace Athletic, Rozelle; Chameleon Touring Systems; Ivey Wawn, Brooke Stamp & Marlo Benjamin (dancers in the previous developments); Kyah Simon, Alanna Kennedy & Nicola Bolger from The Matildas; & thanks to our friends and supporters, Mick O’Donnell, Claire Hicks and Matte Rochford.

DIRECTOR’S NOTE A commonly held belief is that sport and the arts do not go together. The argument goes that artists often think of athletes as competition-obsessed ‘boofheads’, while in turn, athletes may deride artists as self-indulgent ‘wankers’.

I am both an artist and an avid sports fan, and I have always been interested in how to bridge the rift between those two camps. Needless to say, I was thrilled when FORM Dance Projects commissioned me to create a dance work that would take its choreographic inspiration from football, to be developed in consultation with coaches and athletes of the Western Sydney Wanderers FC. CHAMPIONS is a dance piece presented as if it is a sporting event. This gives us the opportunity to playfully challenge what dance is and at the same time reach out to audiences who would normally pay a visit to the stadium rather than the theatre. The powerful all-female cast allows us to question pervasive notions of who qualifies as dance/sports ‘champions’ in a culture that generally underappreciates the achievements of female performers, both in sport and in the arts.

Not surprisingly, the creation of CHAMPIONS was a huge team effort. My great thanks to the dancers and creative team for the generosity, commitment and passion each one of them brought to the project. And a special thanks to Mel McLaughlin for being such a good sport and crossing over to the other camp… temporarily at least.

Martin del Amo

MARTIN DEL AMO Martin del Amo is a Sydney-based choreographer and dancer.

He started out as solo artist, acclaimed for his full-length solos fusing idiosyncratic movement and intimate storytelling.

In recent years, Martin has also built a strong reputation as creator of group works and solos for others. His Helpmann Award-winning Anatomy of an Afternoon premiered at the Sydney Opera House as part of Sydney Festival 2012 and was presented with great success at Southbank Centre in London in 2014. Martin’s work has toured nationally in Australia and internationally to the UK, Japan and Brazil. Martin was a recipient of the 2015 Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship.

FORM DANCE PROJECTS FORM Dance Projects is a dynamic hub for Australian contemporary dance based in Parramatta, Western Sydney.

FORM supports Australian choreographers and dancers in all stages of their career and develops artists’ national and international profiles.

In recent years FORM’s program has encompassed commissioning and producing genre-defying large-scale productions with the aim of developing audiences for contemporary dance. Hot on the heels of PUNCTURE (Sydney Festival 2015) FORM has commissioned choreographer Martin del Amo – one of Australia’s most innovative independent dance artists – to create CHAMPIONS for Sydney Festival 2017. Drawing surprising parallels between football and contemporary dance, CHAMPIONS reveals unexpected insights into the fundamentals of athletic and artistic performance.

CHAMPIONS is testament to the adventurous, risk-taking and open-minded approach to collaboration that characterises the independent dance sector in Australia today.

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