Breathing life into dark

In an effort to creatively reflect on the year so far, a local high school’s dance students have pulled out all the stops in a new project. St Mary’s College dance students recently took to Reddell Beach and were filmed for a special dance film project the school plans to showcase in various avenues, including an international dance film competition. Dance teacher Vicki Thompson said the theme for the choreography featured in the dance film followed what has already happened this year — from the NSW bushfires to the South Queensland flooding to the COVID-19 pandemic. “The conversation at the school about the fires brought up Indigenous cultural burning and why that is not practised around Australia because it could have prevented the bushfires from reaching the intensity they did,” she said. “From there, everyone thought that was the worst that was going to happen and within weeks we had the flooding in south Queensland and that is represented by the water portion of the choreography. “Then we move into coronavirus which is also a part of drowning within your own fluid and lungs. “We found that it all seemed to have a theme of ‘I can’t breathe’ and survival, and it is still carrying on today with the Black Lives Matter protests so we ultimately decided that would be our theme.” Ms Thompson said footage of the choreography, which was filmed by the school’s film and photography department staff, would be interspersed with interviews with past and current students. She said she is also looking at entering the film in other film festivals such as Flickerfest, the Australian Short Film Festival, YOH Fest and the Catholic Schools Performing Arts Festival, albeit in different formats. “We would like to get our dance film out to as many avenues as we can although we will be making several different versions,” she said. “For example the International Dance on Film Festival will be more of a documentary with interviews whereas for another festival it would just be the dance itself. “We have a whole bank of material from still photos to drone footage to 360 camera footage so there’s plenty for us to work with so it won’t be the same product sent out to everyone.” Ms Thompson said she would also like to send footage from the dance film to Perth’s Yagan Square.