Dance Foundations and Dance, Choreography and Performance students started their long weekend off with a night at the Burnie Arts and Function Centre to attend the Reflexions Dance Studio (almost) sold out season of ‘The Story Book’, written and designed by local North West Coaster, Fiona Bakes. This formed part of the Burnie Arts and Function Centre’s Subscription Season and consisted of a one hour display of outstanding story telling though the art form of Dance. A classic story of Good vs Evil, The Story Book featured a cast of 96 dancers including our very own Courtney Johnson. The performance featured amazing use of lighting, staging, costumes and set and provided many ideas for our own dancers to consider when contemplating creative use of space for our own choreographic pieces. Highlights included the use of fabric as a symbol of power, the creative spacing of performers to build a maze that the lead character required to negotiate, a well-rehearsed and choreographed ‘battle’ scene between good and evil and the polished standard of performance produced by such dedicated local performers. We take this opportunity to thank Fiona Bakes for then following up the show with a visit as our guest artist in class this week where we benefited from reflection and discussion around choreographic devices, the creative process and how to manage large numbers of performers in a show of this scale.
We thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated learning from Fiona’s experience and congratulate Courtney, Fiona and the cast of ‘The Story Book’ on a tight, professional, creative and moving performance.