Ausdance NSW - Bernadette Walong creates a new company

“...Walong is sleek spirituality in motion...” (J. Sykes, SMH, Bodies 1997) uniquely “dancing her own dance....idiosyncrasy, delicacy, surprise and resilience...” (P.Manly, Realtime, groundUP! 2008)

Choreographer Bernadette Walong-Sene (formerly Walong) has completed the first stage of establishing a new company BWSENE !nmotion Australia. A cross cultural umbrella she likens to an arts enterprise will initially operate between the 2 states of NSW and QLD, and West Africa.

Married to Senegalese martial artist, Mbar Sene, (2009) the two will build the dance company’s profile as a cross-cultural multi-arts enterprise delivering performance, choreographic and performance research, mentoring labs, and professional services in consulting, networking, education and community outreach. In Senegal it will partner with Jallore Danse Theatre, (St Louis, Senegal) directed by Cire Beye, also a senior dancer-choreographer with Germaine Acogny’s acclaimed Senegal and French-based Compagnie Jant-Bi.

Walong-Sene recently returned from a successful invitation to Los Angeles at the IABD Conference (International Assoc of Blacks in Dance) hosted by the Lula Washington Dance Theatre where she presented Repatriation – Back to Country, a short work commissioned by 2010’s Red Ochre recipient Michael Leslie, (Michael Leslie Foundation for the Performing Arts, Pilbara WA) on a trio of young Pilbara dancers. It featured in the Youth Showcase component of the Conference, in which Leslie the first ever Australian, was awarded the US IABD’s International Unsung Hero award, for his contributions to Black Dance in Australia. The work of the Pilbara-based foundation also focuses on exposing the region’s young indigenous dancers to other international black dancing cultures, in this case the USA. A regular component of his program Michael insists it is integral in broadening experiences and instilling in young indigenous and non-indigenous dancers anything is possible if one can dream it, and the many wonderful opportunities that dance has to offer; self-esteem, confidence and pride in one’s self and culture.

BWSENE !nmotion Australia will capitalise on a strong foundation with a long history and contribution to indigenous and non-indigenous dance in Australia, and on global connections with leading practitioners in world indigenous/black dance. Walong-Sene sees the need now for further development beyond numbers and presence, and particularly in variety, the how of story-telling. In Australia there are limited avenues for informed research, critical analysis/debate and archival documentation detailing the evolution of Indigenous and Cross-cultural dance practice and performance research. The result is a disenfranchisement exacerbated by the lack and variety in platforms to facilitate presentations challenging the clichés and “cultural rhetoric” consistently surrounding cross-cultural work, particularly here in Australia in comparison to our world counterparts.

BWSENE !nmotion Australia will develop its choreographic/performance research, mentoring and education/community outreach agendas through programs developed in collaboration with a culturally-diverse range of artists and organisations, and consolidate on performance research and training methodology evolving from a body of work spanning over 2 decades in contemporary dance (indigenous and non-indigenous). Initiated prior (Dance North) and put to practice during her time at Bangarra (in Ochres, with Stephen Page, 1994/95), these investigations have developed far and beyond, substantially fleshed out, culturally, conceptually and physically; propelled by professional engagements here and abroad and during almost a decade as a Performance academic at the UWS. (University of Western Sydney) Walong-Sene describes her work as “a collision” in all aspects, “I do not see myself as a cultural documentarian or archivist, rather an agent for change.”

A large part of the company’s brief will continue her mentoring work, and in particular with the new generation of indigenous and cross-cultural dance makers and practitioners here, and to create long overdue and much-needed vehicles for collaborations and exchanges with global counterparts, whether in Africa, Samoa, Greenland or Iceland.

BWSENE !nmotion Australia’s 2011-2013 program includes the first phase development of the AAA! Project (Australiasiapacific Africa America) which will be a regular and ongoing program with black dance in the 3 continents. This period also includes invitations to Toronto, Canada and finalising commissions in the USA including NY.

NOTE: For further information contact the company at * info@bwsene.net

*New website on its way!

Meantime, check out www.linkedin.com/in/bwalong