An Incomplete Box Set

We meet on Anouk van Dijk's birthday, just as the cast of Chunky Move's new work, 247 Days emerge from the rehearsal studio to consume apple cake and sing Happy Birthday in both Dutch and English. In an unintended way it says something about where Chunky's new Artistic Director is at.

“It's my first summer birthday,” van Dijk explains but that's only the start point. New to Australia, the Dutch-born choreographer – who now heads one of this country's premier contemporary dance companies – is still adjusting her life and her practise to the antipodes.

“What I've found is a certain grace and containment in the people,” she observes. “They carry that really strongly, which is really different to where I come from, and I really wanna put that on stage somehow.” Then, after a beat, she adds, “But then underneath that there's the roaring beast. You open the cage and then suddenly – bang! – something comes out. The potential extremes that people have in them here I find really inspiring to work with.”

The mash of opposites is not new to dance, or indeed to van Dijk. Renowned for her site-specific work, (including last year's Melbourne Festival stunner, An Act Of Now), she now finds herself indoors for 247 Days. “A black box gives different possibilities than site-specific so you have to really think differently. But that's the main charm and challenge of switching between the two. It's a completely different logic when you make a work.”

Understanding that she will need to deal with people's preconceptions coming out of An Act Of Now, Anouk van Dijk says simply, “This is a more introverted work, whereas Act Of Now was more extroverted. So in that sense a black box is a really good space to do that; because you can really control the environment fully and you can allow things to come down to just looking at a person.”

Although she is working with five of the ensemble from Act (as well the same composer and lighting designer), the new work inevitably involves its own peculiar challenges. “What I thought for this one was, 'okay, so I've arrived here and made a splash, but for the next piece I want to take a little bit of time to take stock of where I am and what's changed in my perspective as a fresh immigrant.'”

247 Days is also a reflection on self, and on the way we sometimes catch ourselves in unguarded moments. Taking this idea into the set design, a semi-circle of 16 vertical mirrors creates a kaleidoscopic effect. Audiences will see both back and front of the six dancers, thereby amplifying the sense of observation.

“True performers love to expose themselves,” van Dijk states. “But I always want to imply the presence of the audience in what the work is about. The dancers will be watched, will be judged, and they have to surrender and be witnessed in that act. That is a very fragile state.”

As part of the Dance Massive event, 247 Days represents more than just the 'difficult second'. As van Dijk puts it, “24/7 could be another reading of it. The 24/7 experience of taking in new information, of constantly looking at things from different angles. But then 24/7 could also be your life; all of it.”