From dancer to dance-maker

Australia has their eyes pinned on Tim Harbour as one of the most exciting choreographers in recent years. This year he’ll be presenting a brand-new work for The Dancers Company called Songs of Light; a playful, physical poem revolving around the naivety and passion of young love and friendship. When asked about how he has developed his own style he says, “It’s not something that just happens by trying to be different from everyone else. There’s nothing new under the sun, as they say, and I try not to kid myself that anything I do is wholly original.”

How do you conceive your ideas? Do you have techniques to get your creative juices flowing?

I like to start with the music and take my inspiration from there. I also think it’s important to make something that sits well on the dancers who perform it, whether they are students or professional dancers. If I’m getting stuck with my steps I try to slow myself down and think of the emotion I’m trying to express instead of creating ‘inventive choreography’. Dance can express emotions which there are no words for.

How did you come across your music for Songs of Light?

The two tracks I’ve used are compositions by an English group called Radiohead titled Let Down and No Surprises. They’ve been transposed to piano. I’m a big fan of Radiohead and have been listening to their music for a long time, waiting for an opportunity to use it. In the past, Radiohead haven’t let their music be used for dance, but this has recently changed and I thought it would be a perfect fit for this Dancers Company programme. The music is beautiful and the dancers really seem to relate to it.

Do you think new choreography is taking a particular direction?

I can’t say because there’s wildly different stuff out there. I do think that modern dance has been presenting narrative-based ballets more successfully for some time. They’ve probably helped to make dance more accessible, too. Contemporary ballet’s strength, as I see it, lies in its emphasis on music and its keen interpretation of it. Graeme Murphy’s Firebird is a great example of where ballet can go. It was full of epic themes and grand gestures; this is something that ballet can do really well, if in right hands.

Who have been the most inspiring choreographers you’ve worked with in the past?

There have been many choreographers I’ve enjoyed working with as a dancer, including Graeme Murphy, Stephen Baynes and Stephen Page. I guess what they all have in common is their approach. They all have an instinctive way of creating by reacting to the music and the dancers in front of them. I’m sure they all have an over-arching ‘plan’ but their approach feels very spontaneous. This is something I strive for when I work.

How difficult is it to transfer your skills from being a dancer to a choreographer?

I think that being a dancer helps a great deal, especially when it comes to communicating with the dancers you work with – you know exactly how to explain the movement you have in mind. Explaining the ideas behind your movement is a different story, though. That really comes down to personality and how well you click with the dancers. Being a ‘creator’ of dance is quite a different thing to being an ‘interpreter’ of dance and some dancers are interested, and some aren’t. These days, dance training is placing more and more emphasis on igniting interest in choreography among students – which I think is a good thing.

This year’s Dancers Company tour takes in Ballaret, Frankston, Sale, Geelong, the Gold Coast, Toowoomba, Rockhampton, Ciarns, Alice Springs and Darwin from 15 July – 19 August