The choreographer is only the second to receive two commissions from Chunky Move, having delighted audiences a couple of years ago with Mix Tape. AORTA, her ‘most detailed’ work, is the final show in an exceptionally busy year for Lake. The work is her attempt at physicalising the ‘forces of growth and decay’ in the human body. “We all have an internal metronome,” she says. “AORTA is a choreography of our insides. The body contains so much movement and electricity; electromagnetic activities are elements of our bodies; I’m surprised it hasn’t been done already.”
Lake has handpicked three male dancers (Josh Mu and Jameses Batchelor and Pham) for this work, for no other reason than that she wanted to work with one gender. Was she concerned this decision might be seen as supporting dated notions of the male body being the ‘default’ human body, as it has been in medical literature (just one area of many) for so long? “I’m absolutely keen to avoid that charge,” Lake replies. “It was a risky move. Working with one gender was a choice for me, it was just an experiment to see what resulted choreographically. But the question is ‘why not’ (choose one gender to work with) in the same way you ask ‘why?’” Working with all female cast, she agrees, could have raised questions about women’s bodies always being associated with blood flow, and a move which could have led to charges of cliché. In any case, Lake has learnt to not anticipate audience responses to her work. “People will interpret it in their own ways, anyway. As a dancer/choreographer you can think you’re being completely obvious and then be interpreted differently, or you think you’re being subtle and that can be seen as obvious. I’ve given up on making any assumptions about what people will think. Dance is such a subjective form – there are no characters, no narrative, it’s just an experimental thing. I’ve tried to stay true to the idea, all in movement. We all inhabit bodies, it’s relatable for everyone. My question is ‘how am I going to make this piece distinct?’ I want to create a world that transports audiences; I want to take them on a ride.”
The interesting thing about working with one gender, Lake says, is the way, you get to see subtle differences in how the dancers move: “It’s an interesting dynamic. Even though they are all male dancers and a little bit closer to each other – they have a different movement vocabulary. It’s interesting to see the uniqueness of the dancers, it’s amazing looking at physical differences in their dance, the approaches of the individual men. What’s happened is that it draws your attention in, to their different (dance) backgrounds, for example. Even though they will be dancing in unison and unified by that, they are executing quite complex movements and the work draws your attention to the smaller details. There are all these interesting textures.”
Was there any special preparation involved in putting this work together? “Not particularly,” Lake answers. “It’s always an interesting process which takes twists and turns. Choreographic work often changes direction. At first we were going to have technology, have the dancers wired up to electromagnetic sensors which would read data from their bodies and turn that into video but technology was disappointing, it was not as particular as I would have liked. But we are left with the essence of that idea; we still have the video element, it is linked to the sound and the choreography; the idea of visual information really informed the choreography of the show.” Lake is collaborating with video/media artist Rhian Hinkley, and both the original score and sound and light design of the show is by Robin Fox. “We are so fortunate to have him,” Lake adds. “He’s hugely inspiring, his work’s a massive part of the piece.”
The greatest challenge for Lake is in pulling the whole thing together. “We are at the tail end of the process and now we have to draw all the elements together, trying to find a bigger arc, some kind of logic without a script or a middle, beginning or end – it’s most satisfying when it does crystallise. The beginning stage is easy – I love that part of it.”
Does Lake think her dancers are even more aware of their physical selves than usual as a result of putting together AORTA? “Maybe more so than with other pieces and that is true probably right through the performance. Making contemporary dance is a collaborative process and where they’re ‘at’ physically is a big influence. There’s a lot of room for interrogation of the body. These dancers, particularly, just have an extra level of sensitivity which is really exciting.”
BY LIZA DEZFOULI
