At the heart of Annalouise’s rich choreographic work is a love for storytelling.
Welcome. My practice is ever-evolving, deeply connected to my multilayered ancestries and indigeneity, as a Jewish person. From the age of nineteen, I began dance. Early on, I became fascinated with the forms I was studying - flamenco and contemporary, and how these might be moulded authentically onto my body, as I learned to strike a balance between aesthetic shifts and cultural protocols.
Some decades later, the necessity to originate intracultural processes became crucial. To create unique choreographies from a visceral language that I could explore as a solo artist and to collaborate with ensembles of dancers whose cultures were vastly different from mine. Living traditions everywhere share the same underscore of protocols and possibility. Traditional dance genres in my world view, sit equally with western dance genres; sans hierarchy. Today, dance for me, is both somatic and spiritual, divine.
Stories, myths, legends are expressions of our human histories. Memories that reside within our bodies, help shape identity as a constantly transforming construct. There is no one way to tell a story, except that dance is storytelling in its very essence.
I draw on a culmination of skills gathered from working in feature films, television, opera, theatre, music video and radio and with marginalised communities and corporate sectors. Emerging as a dancer-actor in London and Los Angeles and directing, making, researching and touring in India, Singapore and Malaysia in recent years, has opened up a breadth of networks and friendships.
Annalouise Paul Dance Theatre has been supported by government funding, arts residencies, private sponsorship, philanthropy and many generous wonderful individuals. I engage project-based dancers, musicians, designers and producers as I continue to carve out a niche for my works internationally and at home, in Sydney. Thanks.
A truly original voice
THE STATESMAN | India
“‘Your canon of work is a reference point for championing inter-cultural practice in new and interesting ways. Super important for the development of the art form.’”
“‘Credit must be given to Annalouise Paul for leading the movement for the evolution of art and the redefining of perceptions. Such forward thinkers are needed to push doors open and to discover new pathways.’”