Meet choreographer Melanie Lane

ARKADIA, choreographed by Melanie Lane. Image credit: Gianna Rizzo

Melanie Lane is an Australian/Javanese choreographer and performer. Hailed as “one of the most interesting dance voices in Australia” (Bachtrack), her work spans continents and has seen her collaborate with filmmakers, visual artists, theatremakers and musicians. She’s currently working with us on Refractions, devising movement that responds to music curated and performed by creative director Rakhi Singh and electronic artist Clark.

Ahead of the tour in April, we asked Melanie to tell us more about her ideas powering her choreography for the show…

What role does dance play in Refractions?

Refractions is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the ancient relationship between music and dance. From ancient rituals, traditional folk dance, cultural ceremonies, to ballets, balls and clubs, this everlasting relationship continues to evolve as both artforms respond to the world around us. This relationship has formed an enormous part of my practice and close collaboration with my partner Chris Clark for many years. We have created over 20 dance and music works together for theatre and music festivals. Refractions feels like an opportunity to zoom in on this practice and ask: how do we explore the language in which the body and music speak with each other?

What concepts are you exploring through the choreography?

After listening to the music carefully curated by Rakhi and Clark, we have been thinking about the meeting between histories and futures. How can music allow us to travel through time as well as imagine worlds beyond our own? The ideas driving the dance element draw from this journey of time, referencing eras of the medieval and romantic, travelling into our current social fabric and transforming these into mythic worlds beyond our reality. Bodies trace history, like an archive of movement that forms a chrysalis that gives birth and transforms into something more alien or post-human. 

I think Refractions creates a world of potential – somewhere we can dream into and be transported to places we've yet to encounter. Music for me has always been a form of travelling, and I hope to bring audiences on this journey with us.

What can we expect to see on stage? 

The work Clark and I create often treads territories of mythology and fiction. The choreography I create is highly collaborative with the dancers and often speaks with dynamic, visceral movement that is an expression of the human condition. Chaos and harmony, light and dark, speed and stillness – these counterpoints are often at the heart of my creations. In dialogue with the music, light and design, these will be the physical counterpoints that will inspire the choreography for Refractions.

For this show’s wardrobe, I’m collaborating with Berlin-based, avant-garde fashion designer Don Aretino. In the same way we trace through archives of music and dance, Don and I will curate a series of looks from his own collection that transform into a final image of bodies in flight – a metaphor of how we might travel into the future. His practice incorporates queerness, religion and social analysis as a catalyst for his bold and poetic creations.

Refractions will be performed at Bridgewater Hall, Manchester on 25 April and Southbank Centre, London on 26 April as part of Multitudes Festival.