STEPS Youth Dance Company is taking risks to celebrate its 21st birthday by including aerial acrobatics for the first time.
The physical moves will be part of this month’s show Phoenix, featuring 32 Perth dancers – 14 boys and 18 girls aged from 12-21 – who tell a coming of age story that begins with the end of the world and follows with the sometimes emotional rebuilding process.
Several people who have survived the apocalypse are surrounded by remnants of what is now the past and need to choose what to keep and what to leave behind as they shape a new world.
Company artistic director and Phoenix choreographer Alice Lee Holland said she had tried the aerial moves herself to determine what physical attributes the selected dancers would need to pull off in the choreography.
Holland said 140 dancers had auditioned for STEPS’ biggest show of the year, which demonstrated how popular modern dance had become since the introduction of TV shows like So You Think You Can Dance.
“Those TV shows have given us more of a spotlight so we will just keep doing what we are doing and benefit from the publicity dance is getting nationally, which has attracted more boys to dance.”
Holland said the choreography team included second-year WA Academy of Performing Arts student Tyrone Robinson, who at 17 is the youngest choreographer on the show, as well as guest Adam Wheeler.
Phoenix is at the Playhouse Theatre on Saturday, March 20 at 2pm and 7.30pm and Sunday, March 21 at 5pm.
For tickets, call BOCS on 9484 1133.