120 Birds Project snapshot
The rise and fall of an Australian dance company that toured the world in the 1920s and 1930s, discovering new worlds, breaking norms, falling in love – all through the world of dance.
120 Birds is a new company work based around the international touring of 1920s dance companies and artists such as Anna Pavlova, Ruth Denishawn and Florence Broadhurst. A company of four performers reveal a rich texture of characters against a backdrop of film, photography, fashion and fiction.
Liz Lea will continue to explore her distinctive choreographic style in the development of the performers, using gesture, expression and physicality in contemporary movement enhanced by the Charleston, Tango and Waltz. Humorous and poignant, and named after the 120 birds Anna Pavlova toured to Australia with in 1929, the work is not a history lesson but rather a celebration of dance steeped in history and humor.
Lea will play the company ‘Madam’/Director, recounting the story of her fictional dance troupe as it travels the world in the 1920s and 30s, from rags to riches – and rags again. On top of her 20 years in dance, Lea has in the past five years begun adding speech to her choreography and performances, and 120 Birds will see narrative and speech take centre stage in a starring role.
International research & collaborations
Research for the work began in 2008, when Lea was in residence at Dancebase, Edinburgh. Following this she traveled the routes taken by both the Denishawn and Anna Pavlova Companies in India in the 1920s. Currently a Fellow at Australia’s National Film and Sound Archive where she has full access to film, sound and photographic archives, Lea is pooling this research with material garnered from the Australian National Library, New York Public Library and Jacobs Pillow Dance Festival.
Her thorough research will result in a montage backing film for the performance, along with music, lighting, costumes, performance style and narrative all influenced by the real life dramas of touring dance companies in the 1920s and 30s. For more information about the show http://www.love.dancebase.co.uk/
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