Did you have any influences on your dance practice?
My childhood dance teacher was sort of a mentor to me and encouraged me to pursue this career which included helping me learn how to teach dance.
When I got into WAAPA I soon realised I had absolutely no idea what contemporary dance was. I just knew nothing. I had to work really hard to learn about the contemporary dance industry. I didn’t have anyone I could say was an influence because I really didn’t know anyone in that field of dance.
I had some amazing teachers. The dance director at WAAPA when I was studying, Nanette Hassall, was a dancer with the Merce Cunningham Company, and she was incredible. The director of contemporary dance, Reyes de Lara, had worked with the Martha Graham company, so I felt I was given a fabulous foundation in contemporary dance technique.
There was another teacher, Dr Jo Pollitt, who taught me the beauty and power of improvisation and I really love improvisation and I would say it is what underpins my choreographic practice.
How did you develop from that starting point?
I didn’t do much theatrical work when I was studying but after I graduated I got a job with Lucy Guerin. The timing of that felt like fate as she choreographed our graduation piece and the next year, she needed a dancer for a show called “Human Interest Story”.
I was very fortunate to get this opportunity and found out just what I was in for in terms of working in contemporary dance. Lucy was very experimental, so we did a lot of vocal training, and I felt I had to unlearn a lot of what I thought I needed to be doing and adapt the way I moved.
I always think about how Lucy treated us as dancers. She gave me a start in my career, she was so generous, so kind and incredibly creative. She opened my mind to what was possible in dance beyond just physical movement.
In that show, “Human Interest Story”, we used chairs, papers and we spoke. This showed me just how creative you could be with dance. I am still so grateful to her for giving me that opportunity despite the fact that I felt completely out of my depth. I really struggled doing that work but I learned a huge amount.
Any other people who have had an influence on your work?
Chrissie Parrott, who was the director of one of the most successful dance companies in Perth, took me under her wing and as my mentor she continues encouraging and helping me learn how to continue a dance career.
I also worked with Gavin Webber and a group called, The Farm, they are based in Queensland, and I learned a lot from them about telling a narrative through contemporary dance. Their work was very theatrical, movement theatre I would call it, and it wasn’t just dancing as an abstract body moving through space. It was about speaking a narrative through dance.
I’m currently working for Elio Gervasi in Italy, and I am so very grateful for him as he gave me an opportunity just when I started believing I would never get to work for another company. He has an improvised approach and way of working with the body which has allowed me to dance in a way I didn’t realise I could. Drawing on those techniques I learnt in university, pushing me to explore possibilities in virtuosic movement and increase my capacity in movement in a way I thought I wouldn’t get to again in my life.
There are more and I feel lucky I have had a nice variety of people I’ve worked with who have inspired me and allowed me to develop my craft.
To see more of Talitha Maslin’s work go to the link below
