SDC's INDance 2025: Spotlights on Amy Zhang and Rebecca Jensen

From 14 to 23 August, Sydney Dance Company’s INDance returns to the Neilson Studio, supported by the Neilson Foundation. The curated season showcases innovative dance works from independent Australian artists, each selected by an independent panel led by Sydney Dance Company’s Artistic Director Rafael Bonachela.

Week 1 brings together two very different, yet equally inventive works: [ gameboy ] by Amy Zhang and Slip by Rebecca Jensen with musician Aviva Endean. Zhang’s creation drops two avatars into a game-like dance theatre world inspired by Japanese game shows, internet culture and the pursuit of “winning at life.” Jensen’s work blends movement and Foley art to explore unseen processes, illusion and the space where sound and movement fall out of sync.

Dance Australia spoke with both artists about their works, their creative processes and what they hope audiences will take away.

Amy Zhang – [ gameboy ]

INDance offers a platform for new voices and experimentation within Sydney Dance Company’s programming. How does it feel to present your work in this context, and what does this opportunity mean to you as an independent artist?
Super validating! Traditionally, contemporary dance very rarely gives voices to someone like me – a Chinese woman, who has foundation in street dance – so I’m so stoked to be part of this program and to be platformed by Sydney Dance Company.

Your work challenges traditional narratives in dance. How do you see the role of contemporary dance evolving, particularly when it comes to pushing form and content?
The word contemporary literally means “belonging to or occurring in the present”. I think my work is just an amalgamation of how I see and have experienced the world up until this point. I don’t think it’s super revolutionary, but I do hope that the contemporary dance space broadens its understanding of what and more so who is included in that narrative.

What do you hope audiences will take away from your work, emotionally, intellectually, or physically, once they leave the studio?
I hope people walk away having experienced a full spectrum of life’s emotions and walk back into the world braver to be themselves no matter how quirky or absurd.

[ gameboy ] draws inspiration from game shows, internet culture, and the idea of “winning at life.” What sparked this concept, and how does it reflect your perspective on contemporary life?
The initial idea came from me questioning how dance was being developed, rehearsed, and shared during lockdowns. Having grown up playing video games, I felt we weren’t utilising the internet and its true capacity to foster community and connection. I received a fellowship with Critical Path and for four weeks researched how video games could be used to develop dance and how that compared to working in person.

From this research, I noticed how games both online and in person really reflected my philosophy on life – we get dropped into this world, we learn things, arm ourselves with protection and then we’re out there just making choices and hoping to make it to the “next level”. From there all of my loves for Asian game shows, internet culture and video games poured out and [ gameboy ] was born.

The work seems to blur the lines between avatar and human, performance and play. What does the avatar metaphor allow you to explore that feels uniquely relevant right now?
During the research phase of [ gameboy ], we played a game called The Sims. The game is based on aspiration – you create avatars, build dream houses and can essentially live out your fantasy life. I found it really interesting getting an insight into who people would be if they could be or do anything and the reasoning behind it all. Social media obviously parallels this but truthfully, I think there’s an element of curation in our “in person” lives also. This work definitely dances between those two lines and there is an undercurrent exploration of the person we share with others vs who we are deep down.

Your cast features highly respected dancers from both street and contemporary backgrounds. How did their individual vocabularies influence the choreography and world-building of [ gameboy ]?
For this work I let my movement direction practice inform my choreographic practice. Often when I’m working with non-dancers, my process is to take their existing movement vocab, amplify it and teach it back to them so it looks and feels more natural in their bodies. Both Billy and Ko have a strong freestyle/improv practice and I’m obsessed with how they move. This meant that I was able to build the world using their extensive vocabulary and we had a lot of fun playing with how their movement language could crossover. This way of working also meant that a large portion of the show can be what I call “structured freestyle” which keeps the world of [ gameboy ] alive and breathing every night.

There’s a clear sense of satire and absurdity in the structure of escalating levels. Is there an underlying message or emotional truth that you hope cuts through the humour and spectacle?
All I ever want in life is for people to feel confident in who they are; that they are enough and that they can be themselves no matter what. From my experience, the best way to disarm people is by being the most unapologetically myself person in the room in hope that this creates a safe space for others to feel like they can do the same. [ gameboy ] is the dance theatre version of that.

Rebecca Jensen – Slip

INDance offers a platform for new voices and experimentation within Sydney Dance Company’s programming. How does it feel to present your work in this context, and what does this opportunity mean to you as an independent artist?
It’s incredibly exciting to share my work on Gadigal land and to be part of the INDance season alongside such strong choreographers. I think it’s vital for independent artists across the country to see each other’s work and for shows to have life beyond their premiere – it’s a far more sustainable approach than constantly creating new pieces. I’m curious how Slip will be received, given it was made a few years ago – a lot has happened between 2023 and now, it feels like a time capsule of sorts.

Your work challenges traditional narratives in dance. How do you see the role of contemporary dance evolving, particularly when it comes to pushing form and content?
I’ve always looked at dance in an expanded way, thinking through the body and exploring the interdisciplinary potential of choreography. I love working with collaborators who make me see movement differently and expand my sense of how dance is understood outside the dance world (it can be a bit of a silo!). I’m a maximalist. I like seeing and creating lots of images, using props and costumes, and giving the audience plenty to connect with. With Slip I let it be busy, I wasn’t concerned with creating something restrained or singular or having a clear narrative.

Things like Instagram and a lack of resources available are definitely shaping how we make work. Timelines are shorter, but the reach can be bigger. I think many people now create with the idea of something looking good in a photo or reel, maybe this is prioritised over something that only lives in the imagination of the audience in the moment. I sit in a more experimental, cross-disciplinary corner of contemporary dance, but so much exciting work is happening across diverse contexts – much of it beyond the theatre – which shapes the kind of work being made and I think that’s great.

What do you hope audiences will take away from your work, emotionally, intellectually, or physically, once they leave the studio?
With Slip, people have told me they leave feeling recalibrated and more attuned to their surroundings, partly because of the almost ASMR-like use of sound – which I love. I care a lot about attention and focus, so it’s nice when people leave with their senses a little heightened. I hope people feel curious enough to wonder what it all might mean – but I’m just as happy if they walk away thinking, “That was weird, but I liked X and X,” even if they can’t quite say why.

Slip intertwines movement and sound through the lens of Foley art. What drew you to this cinematic technique as a choreographic tool, and how has it shaped your approach to dance-making?
When applying for the Kier Choreographic Award (where Slip started back in 2022), I went down a rabbit hole watching Foley videos on YouTube and loved the physicality that comes as a by-product of being so invested in creating sounds – the way Foley artists stare intensely at a screen to match sounds up, resulting in a mesmerising hyper-focus, which Aviva and I have learned is very real.

I was drawn to the absurdity of Foley art – how everyday sounds, like shutting a door, are recreated and recorded in post production just to make the image on screen feel more “real.” I was also drawn to the substitutions: gloves flapping for bird wings, celery snapping for broken bones. The best kind of Foley is said to go unnoticed, much like the work of algorithms and big tech. It got me thinking about all the processes something goes through before it reaches you, what’s happening BTS – how what we take at face value is almost never as simple as it seems.

The work explores substitution, illusion, and mediation. In an era saturated with filtered realities and algorithmic experiences, what does it mean to you to “fall out of sync”?
For me, it’s about not understanding the full picture, how one thing leads to another, and being complacent about that – which is a bit scary. A kind of disassociation. If we don’t know how everything connects, then we’re only ever engaging with part of the truth and we are not seeing ourselves as part of a dynamic, interwoven system of bodies, histories, and environment, where our actions echo into the future.

I wear a medieval gown like an actor who’s wandered onto the wrong set. Objects from different eras appear, many now obsolete – keys, newspapers, coins. The work ends with an ode to Anna Pavlova’s Dying Swan, except only my hands remain – a nod to hand-tracking technologies and the diminishing need for the physical body as we move deeper into digital, “invisible” spaces. Falling out of sync can mean stepping outside the smooth, seamless flow of mediated experience – slipping into a space where things feel slightly off, where the illusion wobbles and the gaps show.

You’re collaborating closely with musician Aviva Endean in this duet. How did your creative dialogue evolve, and in what ways do you find dance and sound challenge or complement each other in this piece?
I wanted to work closely with sound in a fun, playful, open-ended way. I was keen to collaborate with Aviva because I loved her practice and have always been fascinated by experimental sound art – especially transforming everyday objects into unusual instruments and creating uncanny sounds. Using off-the-shelf objects like plastic pipes to make precise sounds has a strong connection to Foley.

Collaboration sharpens how we use language – how we describe things, make assumptions, and get on the same page. We think differently, and that’s one of the best parts – having to explain the “whys” and “whats” can be clarifying. Aviva and I are both classically trained, we like to rehearse and drill down, but we also work a lot with improvisation. Slip is a fairly set work, but we’re keen to create more work where we can loosen it up – and we have plans to create Slop, the sequel!

INDance runs from 14 to 23 August at Sydney Dance Company’s Neilson Studio, with Slip and [ gameboy ] performed in Week 1. Book here