By Helen Musa
“MY Sister, My Brother,” with 46 young people from Canberra and the ACT region, the Blue Mountains, Batemans Bay, Moruya, Sydney, Perth, Wagga Wagga and Thailand on stage, is the first really big production by the QL2 Centre for Youth Dance.
Ruth Osborne, director of the company, which arose from the ashes of the former Australian Choreographic Centre, told “CityNews” it had been a flat-out first year, with an outstanding run of the graduate program “Soft Landings” and a recent season at Old Parliament House.
QL2 is now working with artists such as ex-Canberra dancer Paul Zivkovich, Paul White, Carol Wellman and Alice Holland and Patrice Smith from WA, but Osborne and her associate Vivienne Rogis have been rehearsing with the entire group each Sunday in preparation for the guest choreographers who work on special scenes.
Osborne has pulled in dramaturg Pip Buining, from Canberra Youth Theatre, while Oliver Waghorn and Asher Floyd from Bearcage Productions are developing a film as part of the production. The original music and soundscape have been created by Julian Day, Warwick Lynch, Adam Ventoura and Ian Blake.
This year’s theme, in Osborne’s view, is more personal than some they have tackled: “It deals with how young people deal with each other next door or on the other side of the world.”
“My Sister, My Brother”, the Playhouse, July 30-August 2.