Mirror Image is a new production from Mirramu Dance Company in association with Dancecology from Taiwan and the DPAC Dance Company from Malaysia. The idea for this collaboration has been brewing for some time so I am very excited to be presenting it to the public this year.
Many of Mirramu Dance Company’s works have been site-specific, often inspired by Weereewa-Lake George and its ever-changing moods and colours. When Jyh Shyong Wong from DPAC Dance Company first came to Mirramu Creative Arts Centre in 2011, his first response was to choreograph a work on the lakebed. Similarly Hsaio-yin (Grace) Peng who came in 2012, with the assistance of a Man-Fe Scholarship, spent hours with her Dancecology partner exploring the lake bed through movement improvisations.
Realizing that these two artists had very similar creative processes to my own and likewise a similar dance aesthetic and purpose, I decided to propose this collaboration together. Thus the Mirror Image project was born.
I have had a very long association with the dance community in Taiwan and I continue to visit there for teaching commitments at the Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA) and the University of Technology in Tainan, as well as for appearing with members of Mirramu Dance Company in the annual Tsai Jui Yueh International Dance Festivals.
The inter-cultural aspects of this Mirror Image project, though sometimes challenging, are deepening my own connections with Taiwan and Malaysia and are offering enormous personal and professional opportunities and benefits to the Australian dancers involved. We are all developing patience with and respect for each other and in our working together in the studio there is a sharpened sense of concentration in the work at hand and understanding of each other.
On top of this I believe we have created a beautiful work together and I am looking forward to presenting in Canberra in April and then touring to Taipei in June and Malaysia in July.