It’s not easy to get contemporary dance touring regional Western Australia. There are often massive distances between towns that have small populations – the logistics make touring a near impossibility for most artists.
Danielle Micich’s Shiver, however, has managed to overcome the challenges and will literally traverse the state this September and October. Shiver, which explores different kinds of losses, premiered in Perth last November. The work focuses on the lives of four strangers and their experiences of different kinds of loss. Although the theme sounds sombre, it’s not all darkness and despair. “Shiver uses humour and pathos to talk about loss, how we cope with it and how we eventually move on. The stories are universal and explore the vulnerability of being human,” says Director, Danielle Micich.
Shiver is set to perform at venues as far apart as Port Hedland in the Pilbara and Esperance in the Greater Southern. There’s a couple of thousand kilometres between those towns. How does a tour of that magnitude happen?
Community Engagement Officer for the Shiver tour, Annette Carmichael, believes collaboration has been crucial to getting the work out of Perth. “It’s been a great team effort - between a choreographer, Producer Performing Lines WA, Ausdance WA and all the regional venue managers,” she says.
There’s another not-so-secret weapon though. “This tour is different from other tours because we’ve employed a big group of regional artists to lead arts activities in their communities,” says Carmichael. These arts activities are connected to Shiver and are designed to help audiences to engage with the work. “It’s a new model and all eyes are on us, to see whether it’s going to work or not. The idea is that people having a meaningful experience, that they feel connected to what they see on stage.”
See: http://performinglineswa.org.au/performances/current/shiver/
Lewis Kilpatrick and Jacqui Claus in Shiver, Photo: Ashley de Prazer.