Stephanie Lake’s Chunky Mix Tape of Love

CHUNKY MOVE: 'Mix Tape' Photo Credit: Heidrun Lohr. Pictured Timothy Ohl.  

The four Mix Tape dancers are giggling as they wait to be photographed. Then they’re striking poses and bursting into sudden movement, an entangled blur of arms and bodies. Choreographer, Stephanie Lake watches, talks with production and marketing people. By and by, the scene breaks up and she’s free to sit for a while, sip some water and talk to ArtsHub.

Stephanie is immediately striking: tall but someone who curls slightly toward those she speaks to, a gentle form of modesty. She's an easy friendly manner, a strong squarely symmetrical face, and ripples of a smile seemingly always fanning out from her lips.

There are three weeks left of rehearsals before Mix Tape opens, part of ‘The Next Move’ series of contemporary dance performances commissioned and presented at Chunky Move. An open commission, Lake has created an exploration of couplings: love and relationships. The name Mixed Tape, reflects the sort of personal soundtracks we create at different times in our lives; personal, transportative, imbued with memory and emotion, sometimes so strong it’s painful to hear them back.

Rather than having a linear narrative, the piece uses real life stories through vox pops that Lake has recorded from people in the street and friends and interlaced them with popular songs. Each of the twelve or so songs is played out choreographically to evoke particular tones and emotions.

It’s an eclectic and personal set of songs, some consciously chosen, while others have found their place intuitively after being tried in rehearsals. The songs range from Bob Dylan’s Shelter from the Storm to 50s tunes by Dennis Wilson, electro and bluegrass to new folk from Joanna Newsome and Gill Scott Heron’s cover of Smog’s ‘I’m new here’.

Working to songs however, has given her lots of sections, so this stage of the process is particularly tricky. ‘They’re their own little universes’ Lake explains. ‘It is quite segmented and I feel I’ve got all these puzzle pieces and I have to find a way to click them together.. that’s my challenge.’ But she’s excited and impatient. ‘I just feel like we’re pushing towards that finishline and I really want to know what it is already.’

The four dancers are: Timothy Ohl, Sara Black and 2009 VCA graduates and former students of Lake’s, Rennie McDougall and Jorjin Vriesendorp. Through the performance their roles are constantly crossing over, moving in and out of different couplings and a lot of costume changes, giggles Lake.

Having created a spate of big participatorial works of late such as the Chunky Move/AusDance work in Fed Square last year and a guerrilla performance with 400 people in Bourke Street Mall in January, Lake is relishing the opportunity to work with a small group of professionals. As heart-warming and exciting as her big projects have been, Mix Tape enables her to craft complex, intricate and really physical work.

It is also Lake’s first opportunity to create her own full length work and push more into her own style. She describes her emerging style as an emotional sensibility, a bit ‘unashamedly expressive’. Lake almost winces as she confesses to a romantic affliction. ‘But then I have the experience working with choreographers who work with really detailed, sophisticated choreography and I’m interested in pushing that as well.’ She enjoys pushing the pure physicality of dance rather than the theatrical, and using it to describe an emotional place. There’s a humour and wit too, she says, which wiggles its way into most of her work, a tricky thing in contemporary dance.

‘It feels like this is the piece I’ve been wanting to make for 10 years,’ she says, which is about when she graduated from VCA. Originally from Launceston, Lake started with Stompin’ Youth at 15. Then, as in her words, an ‘unformed’ dancer she auditioned for VCA and ‘got in!’ for the three bootcamp years. In her second year, she met Phillip Adams just as he was setting up BalletLab and they clicked.

In her final year she joined in the creation of BalletLab’s internationally acclaimed, Amplification and won the Green Room Award for Best Emerging Dancer. From that fortuitous meeting and success the rest has flowed, including work with Lucy Guerin Inc and Chunky Move. She has returned to Tassie to work with Stompin and maintained her relationship with the VCA, as a lecturer and choreographer of around eight graduating student performances.

‘It’s worked out very well for me over the years,’ Lake acknowledges. She’s got to work with fantastic choreographers from the outset, which has fed into her own work. She’s also recognised opportunities when they’ve come, and being smart about which directions to pursue. ‘But I’ve had a very fortunate career, very blessed.’

After having her two kids, Lake thought perhaps dancing was done, ‘but now I’ve come back to it, more strongly than ever’. Mix Tape rehearsals have gone back to back with her performance in Lucy Guerin’s Human Interest Story and later this year she will start rehearsals with Gideon Obarzanek’s Connected for Dance Massive in 2011.

At 33, however, Lake is looking practically at the future. Though committed to performing she recognises that, though there’s no time limit precisely, she won’t perform forever. She’s looking for a balance and choreography is part of what she wants to be doing. ’ At some point she’d like to move toward starting her own company.

‘You’ve just got to dream the dream and wait for the pieces to fit together. I’ll just keep moving towards that direction and as with most things in my life so far, hopefully that will just happen – With a lot of hard work, she laughs. ‘I mean I make it sound easy, but I’ve been working very hard.’

Mix Tape presented by Chunky Move
Created by Stephanie Lake

Season
Thurs Sept 2. 8m Preview
Fri Sept 3. 8pm: Preview
Sat Sept 4. 8pm. Opening
Sun Sept 5. 4pm
Tues Sept 7. 8pm
Wed. Sept 8. 8pm
Thur Sept 9. 8pm
Fri Sept 10.8pm
Sat Sept. 11 2pm & 8pm

Tickets
Adult $25
Concession $18
Student/Frends $15
Plus booking fee
Bookings: chunkymove.com or 03 9645 5188

Further information: www.chunkymove.com

Chunky Move Studios
111 Sturt Street, Southbank