THE FINAL STAGE

DANCE

25 Oct

Recently landed: The Final Stage

Gracia’s written response to DanceX, Part Two, presented by The Australian Ballet, especially for Fjord Review.

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Folded forward at the waist, knees pressed together, but with her feet apart, Rachel Coulson assumes bird-like form. With her legs held as if bound at the knees, she travels backwards. Arms extended away from her torso giving the impression of wings, she rotates her hands as if her feathery tips are taking readings of the environment around her. In the conjuring of shapes, of course a waterbird appears before my eyes. This is part two of DanceX, presented by the Australian Ballet, where Stephanie Lake Company’s Auto Cannibal, replete with Coulson’s bird-like solo, shares the stage with West Australian Ballet’s Extension to Boom, Tim Harbour’s The Delivery, and Bangarra Dance Theatre’s excerpt from Yuldea.

Commissioned by Australasian Dance Collective and LDTX/Beijing Dance in 2019, Auto Cannibal bears the influence of the supple fluidity and grounded nature[i] of the Chinese dancers Lake first created the work on. Ringed by the dancers, a series of ever-changing duets throbs at the centre. Two dancers connect their extended feet together, before a third dancer taps in, ensuring nothing gets too settled, and a new duet emerges as the first dancer peels away and joins the outer ring once more. In this rotation of twos that change one by one, a chain of movement is passed and the arc of inheritance is drawn. Before gradually, this series of duets, too, gives way to a new pattern.

[i] Stephanie Lake discussing her choreography for Auto Cannibal, https://www.stephanielake.com.au/auto-cannibal, accessed 16th October, 2025.