Dancing about genes and climate change

A recessive gene’s potential extinction and environmental concerns have informed Dancenorth’s latest work.

Imagine a world without redheads. A world in which the gene responsible for giving people red hair has been bred out of existence.

That concept inspired RED, the latest Dancenorth production, directed and choreographed by Page and his partner Amber Haines, Dancenorth’s Associate Artistic Director.

‘We need to reimagine the way that we’re doing things and responding to and relating to the world, and one another. And if we do not do that, then it feels as though the world will – as we’re seeing across the planet right now, with a host of catastrophic climate events and of course the situation with COVID around the world – that the incredible force of nature will [strike back]. We are biologically inferior, we are affected by the world around us, and at some point, we will need to reckon with that.’

Unlock Padlock Icon

Unlock this content?

Access this content and more

Richard Watts OAM is ArtsHub's former National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, a Melbourne Fringe Festival Living Legend, and was awarded the 2019 Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize in early 2020. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Green Room Awards Association in 2021, and a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in June 2024. Photo: Fiona Hamilton. Follow Richard on Bluesky @richardthewatts.bsky.social and Instagram @richard.l.watts