Dance / Emerging Choreographers Program 2025 by Quantum Leap Australia. At the A Block Theatre, Gorman Arts Centre, until December 14. Reviewed by MICHELLE POTTER.

The Emerging Choreographers Program has been an annual Canberra-based event for several years.

Its aim has always been to give aspiring young choreographers an opportunity to collaborate with professional artists in the creation of an original dance work.

The initial surprise of the 2025 program, however, came from opening remarks by Alice Lee Holland, artistic director of what we have long known as QL2 Dance. She unveiled the news that the organisation is working towards the establishment of a new name, Quantum Leap Australia.

The 2025 ECP program was presented under this new name with six emerging choreographers participating in the program: Akira Byrne, Chloe Curtis, Jahna Lugnan, Lucia Morabito, Gigi Rohrlach and Maya Wille-Bellchambers. They were mentored by Holland and Emma Batchelor and were also given the opportunity, a new initiative, of working closely with Owen Davies of Sidestage, the Canberra-based organisation dealing in audio-visual technology for stage productions.

The work that stood out for me was Breathing Statues by Gigi Rohrlach in which four dancers moved from one sculptural pose to another. It appeared to me that the work was set in an Asian context in terms of the costumes, in the somewhat twisted and evocative arm movements as the dancers wrapped themselves around each other, and in sections of the music by Japanese composer Masakatsu Takagi.

I also enjoyed the closing work, Jahna Lugnan’s The Dog Shows No Concern, which Lugnan described as resisting audience expectations and traditional narratives. It certainly was varied in its musical approach, beginning with an excerpt from the opera Carmen but moving on to sound that was much more contemporary. So too was the costuming varied, perhaps one might even say outrageous, but certainly expressive of a variety of possible thoughts.

The shape of me is shifting from Akira Byrne left me wondering about the difference between physical theatre and dance. I found the emphasis on the spoken word frustrating. Nor was I a fan of the movement, especially for the group of four dancers who were like a collection of drooping shapes while the two main performers wrapped themselves around a metal structure. Program notes say the work examined the relationship between mind, body, self and skin.

Some ideas don’t easily translate into dance especially when they are quite abstract concepts. I felt this was the case with Byrnes’ work and also with Chloe Curtis’ Chorophobia, which set out to examine psychological reactions to fear.

One aspect of all works was the strength of the use of the performing space by each of the choreographers, including in those works that were staged in several short sections such as Metamorphosis from Maya Wille-Bellchambers and Mirage of Memories from Lucia Morabito.

Choreography is not an easy art to master and, despite my reservations about some aspects of the works on show on this occasion, I have the utmost respect for those members of Quantum Leap Australia who have the courage to step up and create.