Growing up in Wauchope in NSW with a Mum who had a ballet school, Timothy says he was always around dance. For a while there they couldn’t keep him out of the costume cupboard, and he used to shock his older brother by turning up dressed as Dorothy. He said that while he loved to dance, he didn’t listen to anyone until he was fifteen, and found himself at the Australian Ballet School. While dance suddenly became fulltime rather than an after school past-time, he thrived on being there. Timothy joined the WA ballet in 2005.
For Timothy, in dancing ‘above everything it’s the feeling behind what you’re doing that matters’. Passion is a crucial, artistic element of dance. Whilst technique remains important, his primary objective is to make people feel something.’ Dance plays such a vital role in his life because as he says, ‘Expression is important and sometimes words just aren’t enough.’
He enthusiastically describes the last three years as having been a really exciting time for the WA Ballet. ‘The standard of dancers here is incredible, we have dancers from some of the best companies in the world, and choreographers keen to work with us. We’ve got a repertoire of fantastic, totally original works. It’s rare for a company to do a whole year of original works and we’ve done it’ he said.
The WA Ballet’s Quarry program is a diverse one this year, with dances set to music as diverse as Mozart and Philip Glass. Timothy is one of two dancers in a piece choreographed by WA Ballet’s Associate Artistic Director Catherine Goss for this year’s season of dance under the Perth stars.
Tatu is all about movement. Set to the soundtrack of Run Lola Run, the music has a strong, tribal element supporting what Timothy describes as ‘a sense of thickness to movement and an anti-classical feel.’ He says of Tatu that ‘What makes it special is the two male dancers’ – an unusual combination that reflects the revival of the male dancer in recent times. Now expected to be able to do anything, male dancers need to maintain strength while developing the kind of flexibility that was traditionally the domain of female dancers.
As he is the dancer that gets lifted the most in Tatu, Timothy’s developing an understanding of being that partner, and is coming to realize what it takes to play traditionally female role. ‘When you’re lifting you think that you’re doing the hard work and your partner’s got it easy but I’m learning the other side. I think I’m becoming a better partner as a result’ he explained. ‘It’s great working with dance partner Scott, but men tend to lead so it took a while to settle into the different roles’ he added. Timothy describes the rehearsals as ‘very, very hard work’ – and as he is held together by bandaids when we talk that’s not too hard to believe.
There’s always an intellectual side to contemporary dance but explicitly portraying that to the audience is not always a necessary outcome. While many are intimidated by contemporary dance’s shift away from narrative, Timothy encourages audiences to sit, enjoy, interpret, and enjoy exploring what dance make makes them feel instead.
WA Ballet’s Ballet at the Quarry 2007 series runs at the Quarry Amphitheatre from the 14th of February to the 9th of March.
