Australia Dancing - Expressions Dance Company (1985

Expressions Dance Company (1985 - )

Martin, Andrew: Sophie Bowen and Dan Crestani in 'Behind the Wall', Expressions Dance Company, 2001

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Expressions Dance company was founded in 1984 by Maggi Sietsma and Abel Valls, artistic director and general manager respectively. The company gave its first performance in Brisbane in 1985 as part of the national conference of the Australian Society for Education in the Arts. The first production was Maggi Sietsma's Snow Drops and in that first year the company's commitment to presenting contemporary works by Australian choreographers was clear. In 1985 Expressions presented works by Sietsma, Natalie Weir, Rosetta Cook and Graeme Watson. Over the years Expressions has developed this strong profile and other Australian choreographers whose work has been featured include Jonathan Taylor, Margaret Wilson, Guy Detot, John Nobbs, Jacqui Carroll, Garry Stewart, Brian Lucas, Sue Peacock and Don Asker. International choreographers have also featured, such as in 2007 when the company presented Fragments of Memory by Cheng Tsung-Lung, formerly a Cloud Gate dancer. This piece was performed in a double bill with Jigsaw by Natalie Weir. Sietsma's many works for the company, mostly using original scores by Abel Valls, include Alone Together (1995), Vanities Crossing (1999), Virtually Richard3 (2000), Rites of Spring (2002), Flight! (2003), The 5th Door (2004) and On Thin Ice (2008).

The work of Expressions blends abstraction with theatricality and extends the boundaries of dance and theatre with works that blend speech, dance and visual media. The company has toured widely in Queensland and throughout Australia and in addition to its main company, which specialises in theatre seasons, the company also runs a smaller group of dancers whose responsibility it is to take contemporary dance to schools in regional centres of Queensland. The company also tours internationally and performs at festivals throughout the world. In recent years Expressions has scored major successes in the United States, Austria, Germany, Mexico, New Caledonia, and throughout the Asian region. In 1997 it was the recipient of the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award for outstanding achievement.

In 2008, following significant reductions in funding to the company, Sietsma and Valls announced their intention to end their twenty-four year directorship. Natalie Weir was selected to take over as artistic director, with the final performance for Sietsma and Valls taking place in January 2009 during the company's season of Sietsma's Score! at the Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts in New York. Weir's first full-length work for the company as artistic director, Where the Heart Is, drew on her 2009 shorter work The House Project and premiered in May 2010.

Bibliography:

The repertoire of Expressions to 1993 is in The Ausdance guide to Australian dance companies 1994 (Canberra: AGPS, 1994), pp. 111-117.

Research Materials

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Find more about Expressions Dance Company in:

Internet - Google
Articles - New York Public Library Dance Collection
Pictures - Picture Australia