Garry Stewart looks to expand creative ecosystem after 22 years at Australian Dance Theatre
Australian Dance Theatre explores our symbiotic relationship with nature as its artistic director Garry Stewart plans his next moves.
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They used to talk about the “seven year itch” at Australian Dance Theatre, as that was about how long each of its previous three artistic directors had lasted in the role.
That was until Garry Stewart was appointed in 1999. Now, after a phenomenal 22 years at the head of the Adelaide-based company which has taken the world’s most prestigious dance stages by storm, Stewart intends to step down at the end of his 2021 season.
“It’s extraordinary having a structure through which I can make my work,” he says. “But I feel like, at this juncture … it is time for me to move into a different situation.
“I think that’s going to be healthy for me and it’s going to be healthy for the company. I do feel as creative and as energised as ever, so I’m certainly not dropping off into the abyss. I’ll be continuing to make my work, but in other contexts.”
If anything, challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent shutdown of international air travel and venues last year ultimately revealed many of ADT’s strengths.
“When it first started, it felt incredibly destabilising for everyone,” Stewart says.
“I think the company adjusted very quickly. Probably one of the reasons why we did was that I’m used to doing digital work and working online to some degree. We very quickly flicked the switch into working digitally and making films and making works through Zoom and online.”
With the reopening of South Australian venues – but with overseas touring still off the table – it has also led to one of the biggest and busiest programs that ADT has ever presented in its home state.
Stewart says that is due, in part, to not having been able “spend any money” to present live shows last year, and rolling those resources over into 2021.
ADT has a full-time ensemble, which is rare for a company which does not receive Major Performing Arts Company federal funding from the Australia Council – unlike its interstate counterparts Sydney Dance Company and Bangarra Dance Theatre.
Supernature, ADT’s new work for this year’s Adelaide Festival, continues a series Stewart started in 2016 with The Beginning of Nature and its short film incarnation The Circadian Cycle, then continued with 2019’s South, inspired by Douglas Mawson’s journey to Antarctica.
“They are all positioned under the title of the Nature Series … that all speak about the human relationship to nature,” the choreographer says.
“Supernature is almost like a mythological, dreamlike, otherworldly piece, where humans are part of the processes and fabric and structure of nature itself. It’s quite a surrealistic piece that uses fairly extensive set design and additions to the body, that change the body in some way – and our perception of it.
“It’s very much a meeting of design and choreography, in confluence with each other.”
Stewart is also exploring the concept of transhumanism from a perspective which goes in a different direction than the usual technological enhancements.
“It’s looking at the body in a state of transition back toward nature … it’s more about the body being incorporated by nature, re-establishing the way in which humanity is actually integrally dependent upon the processes and materiality of nature itself.
“It also deconstructs the Vitruvian Man – Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic symbol of the fit, white, able-bodied male figure.
“This is, in some ways, getting back into the primordial slime, rather than getting away from it.”
Supernature also recognises the interspecies reliance of human life.
“On the surface of our skin and within our gut, our entire bodies have billions of bacteria and parasites. They exist on and within our body … in a symbiotic relationship. We need them to survive,” Stewart says.
“So you can actually situate the human body as an ecosystem.
“I think for centuries we have seen ourselves as separate from nature and dominant to nature, and that is reiterated through structures of religion and also capitalism. This work seeks to act as the antithesis of that mode of thinking.
“The reason why we’re in the mess that we are in now is because of our lack for nature, and our status within it.”
In Supernature, the dancers are engulfed in a deep red, slime-like substance which emerges from pod structures suspended overhead.
“Interestingly, slime moulds are very intelligent species that operate through distributed cognition throughout the entire, multicellular colony,” he says.
“Hence the use of slime in this work – it’s meant to be a symbiotic coming together and amalgamation of species. It alters the morphology of the body and reshapes the body.”
Stewart’s future roles will include continuing as director of Flinders University’s new Assemblage Centre for Creative Arts. Much like Supernature’s human symbiosis, Assemblage has been described as a creative ecosystem, where the arts will join research from science, technology and industry.
“We have wonderful artists and academics at Flinders, working across film and theatre and creative writing and gaming,” Stewart says.
“I’m interested in facilitating conversations with the other colleges at the university – with medicine, health sciences, computer sciences, engineering and so forth – to manifest creative arts projects and research that is unique and hasn’t been done before.”
Supernature is at Her Majesty’s Theatre from March 12-14. Book at BASS. adelaidefestival.com.au
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