Tasdance's outgoing artistic director Annie Greig tells Nina Levy about her 18 years at the helm of the company, what came before and what might come after.
When I interview Tasdance’s outgoing artistic director, Annie Greig, she takes my call in the company’s garden. “It’s a beautiful sunny day and I’m sitting at a table, looking through the windows at the dancers with Stephanie Lake,” she says. “We’ve got some tree ferns in a corner and a whole lot of box hedges. The garden was first developed by the late Ken Gillespie who established a ballet studio here [for the former Tasmanian Ballet Company].”
It’s a setting Greig knows well – she’s been artistic director of Launceston’s contemporary dance company Tasdance since 1997. The work that Lake has created for the company is part of the upcoming “Affinity” double bill, which will be the last work that Greig presents for Tasdance before she hands over the reigns to incoming director, Felicity Bott.
Greig is originally from Tasmania, where she studied ballet between the ages of 7 and 13. “I loved the discipline and challenge of ballet,” she recalls. “By the time I got to adolescence, though, I was over the formality. So I handed in my pointe shoes and off I went. Being a very physical person I was into everything physical, gymnastics, sports. At that time (the early to mid 1970s), there weren’t university dance courses, and so I opted for a Bachelor of Education in physical education. As part of the course we did creative dance and it reminded me that dance was a passion and I was made aware of contemporary dance.”
No one was teaching contemporary dance technique in Tasmania yet, but part of Greig’s course involved a secondment period. She chose to go to Adelaide for four months, to Australian Dance Theatre. “Being a secondee was such an enriching experience and it set the wind in my sails to go contemporary dance,” she says.
And “go contemporary dance” Greig did, winning a Fullbright Scholarship to complete a masters in dance and dance education at New York University in 1979. Returning to Australia in 1982, Greig worked as a freelance teacher in Sydney before landing a job at NAISDA in 1986.
Plagued by chronic pneumonia, Greig landed up having surgery to remove a cyst from her sinuses and at the end of 1990 she returned to Tasmania to convalesce. She didn’t rest long though. “Jenny Kinder [the founding director of Tasdance] rang saying, ‘I’ve lost my general manager, I need you!” Greig agreed to fill in for six months and then remained at the dance-in-education company, liaising with schools and creating video resources. When Kinder resigned, Greig applied for the AD position but was unsuccessful. A few years later, however, the position became vacant again. Greig applied and got the job.
Kinder had established Tasdance to take dance into schools, via practical workshops and performances. “When I returned [as artistic director], funding had been reduced considerably and the delivery of the education program had to be looked at differently,” remembers Greig. “I made a decision that we would deliver our work specifically to schools that were offering dance as a subject. I focused on students who had a genuine interest in, and desire to learn about, the art-form.”
And so Greig developed an education-performance program that would become one of her proudest achievements at Tasdance. The program, which operated annually for 17 years, saw Tasdance dancers travel the state conducting workshops in schools. An audition would follow, at which 15 students from years 10-12 would be selected. “We’d bring the students to Launceston, and create a 25-30 minute piece, open it in Launceston and then tour it to three venues in Tasmania,” she elaborates. “It was about giving those kids the chance to gain technical skills, to understand the creative process and to learn about performance. We treated them as a young professional company.”
Unlike most directors of Australian dance companies, Greig describes herself as a curator rather than a creating artist. “I’ve given opportunities to over 50 choreographers to create work, many of them young and emerging,” she remarks. “Likewise I have given many opportunities to young dancers. I’ve also given many opportunities to people to work as rehearsal director. I feel like what I have been able to establish is a bit of a training ground for dancers, choreographers and rehearsal directors.”
After 18 years as artistic director, it’s no surprise to discover that Greig is looking forward to taking life a bit slower in the immediate future. “I’m going to have a gap year,” she says happily. “I’m excited about what the future might hold, but I really feel the need to just stop. I’ve got plans to travel into Indonesia – there’s a festival that I’m helping to put together in Yogyakarta in December. And my partner and I have been invited by Portugese choreographer Madalena Victorino to work on a project she’s doing in Lisbon with homeless people. So there’s a couple of things that are part of that gap year that I think will sway the compass needle… but I really have no firm career plans.”
- Nina Levy
"Affinity" plays Hobart's Theatre Royal 9 and 10 October and Launceston's Princess Theatre 17 October. For more information, including links to bookings, head to www.tasdance.com.au/affinity