New Breed Choreographer Spotlight: Prue Lang

Prue Lang, one of four extraordinary dance makers showcased in this year’s New Breed, is accoladed as a longtime soloist and choreographer for William Forsythe’s Frankfurt Ballet and as a founding member of Meryl Tankard’s Australian Dance Theatre.

We sat down with her to talk about her choreographic interests and conceptualising the future human through dance ahead of her New Breed premiere.

 

Predictions of the future. What do future human behaviours look like? How will artificial intelligence affect future humans? What will humans value in the future?

Yes I always work with dancers. I love working with dancers on the specificities of my choreographic logic and language. I love rich collaborations with performers where we can deeply explore diverse qualities, textures and sensations through the choreographic process.

I’m interested in the sensorial body and how this expands into specific qualities of movements. I love exploring duality in the body – how we can prioritise specific directions while the rest of our body can simultaneously be at the service of this idea. I’m inspired by the Möbius strip as a dynamic spatial organisation of movement, which continuously moves forwards while exploring different surfaces. I’m fascinated by the octopus and draw from its physical intelligence, three-dimensionality, its ability to be soft and buoyant then suddenly super fast, to inform my own choreographic explorations. These are some of the interests reflected in my choreographic practice!

Sometimes hypnotic, sometimes dark, sometimes light, sometimes spacious.

A new choreographic language that is propelled by an investigation into notions of the future human. A work that explores both the darkness and luminosity of what these futures could hold.

Working with William Forsythe, being part of his incredible company in which we constantly explored and evolved rigorous and inventive choreographic modalities. Performing this work with some of the most incredible dance artists in the world – a definite thrill!

That we can constantly invent and re-invent our own choreographic languages and that these languages must be sensed, created, defined and articulated though our bodies, which have their own constant permutations. I love that it is a form that is in constant flux, yet can grow very strong over time!

New Breed was performed at Carriageworks from 29th November – 8th December.
Tickets for New Breed 2019 are on sale now