Stephanie Lake Company is no stranger to genre-bending productions and pushing the limits of contemporary dance, having performed their prolific works across Australia and overseas.
Stephanie Lake, founder and artistic director of the Melbourne-based dance company, said she has been creating large productions over the last few years.
“I’ve been working at this really large scale with big sets,” Ms Lake said.
“[There’s] a few shows that we’ve brought to Brisbane, shows like Manifesto that have nine drummers in them.
“A show called The Chronicles, which has a children’s choir of thirty kids,” she said.
Alongside her work at her dance company, Ms Lake is also the resident choreographer at the Australian Ballet.
“It’s an incredible company. I love David Hallberg, the artistic director, he has just got such amazing vision for what the company can do,” Ms Lake said.
“It’s really exciting for me to work with dancers that have a different background, and it’s opened up lots of opportunities overseas.
“Not coming from a ballet background myself, it’s really pushed me as a choreographer to work in a different way,” she said.
Looking towards at the future of the industry and the next generation of choreographers and dancers, Ms Lake said she is excited and optimistic.
“There’s a lot of genre-busting stuff going on where people are interested in fusing different styles together,” Ms Lake said.
She explained that this fusion has always been happening but is now more common.
“I think it’s going to be interesting just as technology evolves always [and] what that will mean,” Ms Lake said.
“We want authenticity, we want to see human beings doing extraordinary things, we want to be feeling something and to know it’s real. So, I feel optimistic,” she said.
Stephanie Lake spoke to Village Voice ahead of her company’s latest contemporary dance production, VISTA, which brought its spectacle to the Brisbane Powerhouse last month, marking the end of its national tour.
Ms Lake said after working on large scale works, VISTA was a chance to strip it back and focus on choreography and music.
“It’s six dancers and I decided to do it in this really fun two-part structure,” Ms Lake said.
“You see the show in the first half and then there’s an interval, and you leave the theatre and you come back and it’s like you get to see the show again but it’s like you’ve put on psychedelic glasses.
“Everything that you’ve seen before has been shifted, tweaked, reversed, flipped,” she said.
For this production, Stephanie Lake Company collaborated with Melbourne-based fashion label, Alpha60, who provided costuming for the dancers in VISTA.
“They’ve been fantastic [Alpha60 founders], Georgie and Alex – super interested, creative,” Ms Lake said.
“They hadn’t collaborated in this way before but [they’re] really open-minded. So many great ideas and so generous with their time and resources.
“The best thing about making these shows for me is the collaboration with new people as well as the amazing, trusted people that I’ve worked with for so many years now,” she said.
