Micheal Whaites : “Having worked widely in a variety of contemporary western dance styles I often use improvisation in the process of making choreography. The process of setting improvisational scores allows the dancers the freedom to work within those focussed structures, which gives something fresh and new each time. Working with MBDC and GMDC and sharing the information I have learnt over the years has been a pleasure. I wish them all well with their many upcoming tours and hope we can work together again someday. My visit to China has been a rewarding artistic and cultural experience.”

Every now and then， there are visiting modern artists from all over the world who come to work with the Guangdong Modern Dance Company. In July/August this year, Micheal Whaites from Sydney Australia stayed with the company for four weeks to give training classes and improvisation workshops. It was the first time Michael ever worked with a Chinese modern dance company. Originally, he had wished to collaborate with the company to make a work but the proposal was caught in a time when the company was undergoing administrative transition and finally did not materialize. Eventually, Michael went to Beijing Modern Dance Company and then travelled south to Guangzhou to Guangdong Modern Dance Company and spent four weeks with each of these companies teaching classes. Although Michael felt pity about the original plan, he was totally satisfied with the outcome of the residency in both companies. He thinks that this experience in the country and with the companies will lead to a deeper level of collaboration if such chance should arise in the future.
Talking to and working with Michael is a happy experience. He is a pleasant and humurous person. But he is also a serious professional and artist who keeps reflecting on his works, on dance and on humanity. “I see everybody first as a human, then a dancer,” is his opening address to the company during the first class he gave to the Guangdong Modern Dance Company. His way of teaching is sharing and he regards himself as equals to the dancers rather than a teacher with imposing power. “It is for the dancers themselves to take their own responsibility and be self-conscious and disciplined. In America, we don't even have company classes. Everyone of us has to organize training programme for ourselves and keep the body in good conditions.”
Particularly in his improvisation workshops, Michael likes playfulness in movement developments. Playfulness is a good stance to break away from reasoning and routine and to explore new modes of motion. He would like to change people‘s， in particular dancers' over concentration on occular or imagery perception and to reactivate other senses of the body, to maintain sensibility towards the others and the environment and to establish connections with them.
Contemporary dance is a way of life.

Q: If I ask you to mention one best moment and one worst moment in your dance experience， what are they？
Micheal Whaites :The best moment was when I was standing with another girl in the middle of the room in front of Pina Bausch after an 5-hour audition after approximately 500 other auditionees. I was with the Twyla Tharp Company at the time when Pina offered me a place in the company. The offer was one of the high points in my career as a dancer, although I finally did not take it because I felt I still wanted to work with Twyla Tharp in America for a little while longer. After 4 years in 1995, I joined Pina Bausch's Tanztheater Wuppertal.
Worst: turning down an opportunity to choreograph for the Melbourne International Arts Festival and being away from my family so much.

Q: What differs most being a dancer from being a choreographer？
Micheal Whaites :As a dancer, you maintain and develop your body and abilities. You receive information and instructions from the choreographer and in collabroation interpret that.
As a choreographer, I give more responsibility to my dancers and ask them to be more involved in the creative process, by allowing them to compose or choreograph, making the process a two way dialogue, treating the dancers like artists and allowing them to have some input. Ultimately through the creation and final outcome of the work, the choregrapher is responsible for the whole work and often has to detach him/herself from the work and look at it from a distance, from the audience's perspective in a way.

Q: Which role do you enjoy more? Why?
Micheal Whaites :In fact, I enjoy both. When I was younger, I tended to feel that I had lots of ideas to tell and I took every opportunity to prove myself. At this age now, I feel comfortable with either of the roles. Sometimes, I feel I would rather have the simplicity of emerging myself solely in the joy of dancing. But, with more experience comes stronger opinions and harder to find a joyful dancing experience. I mostly prefer to be on the other side of the lights now.

Q: As a choreographer, what kind of dancers you enjoy to work with the most?
Micheal Whaites :When I choreograph, I don't normally work out the steps by myself and then ask the dancers to copy. I can do this, but I prefer to collaborate with the dancers interactively. I throw out questions and/assignments for the dancers to answer or respond to physically. I note down their responses and at the end of the process, I pick out the interesting phrases or things they have given me and link them up to form a dance. Although I have a conceptual framework of the work to start with, I always modify and develop it during the process in reaction to the dancers input. Usually, for a forty-five minutes work, I need at least six weeks to work with the dancers and one week to sew the piece together. I feel that that is the minimum requirement of time for the dancers to establish relationship with the work. The time is important for a dancer to explore new ways of expression, which otherwise would be performed in a routine or habitual way.
Because of my way of choreographing, I like working with dancers who have more experience in life. To me, the physical quality of dance is important and interesting, but the inner quality gives soul to the physicality and energize movements in a meaningful way.

Q: You are experienced in the American as well as the continental European contemporary dance styles. How do they differ from each other?
Micheal Whaites :Well it's a complicated story as there are many different factors that make them different, of course the biggest being culture. I think that as the world becomes smaller through technology and travel, we are all more similar than ever before.When I experienced working and studying on these two continents in the 1990's it was quite clear to me that generally speaking (as there are always excerptions) the styles and techniques of European and North American contemporary dance were fundamentally different. Modern or contemporary dance traditionally in North American has had, and still has a reference point in universities, students often getting involved in there late teens and early 20's discovering the different forms, often having not had any previous specific dance training. This makes it an intellectual pursuit as well as an exploration of physicality. The explosion of post modern dance in the 60's asking the question ‘what is dance' and examining it from a pedestrian perspective as well as the rejection of the ballet form earlier in the century gave contemporary dance a very particular beginning.
Traditionally in Europe Modern or Contemporary dance has been about saying something, expressing a feeling or an emotion. There appears not to have been such ‘ Revolutions' in the development of the form. The use of dancers with ballet training to do this makes it different from North America. Generally speaking North American Dance is more Physically inclined whereas Europe is more conceptual or theatrical.
Today of course there are many different companies working in almost as many different ways on both continents.

Q: Are these dance styles reflected in your work? Is there an Australian style of contemporary dance?
Micheal Whaites :I consider my work a synthesis of both these styles in my very particular way. I consider myself a humanist. A dance anthropologist. Both physical and theatrical, my works usually develops around a concept or theme, often the work is about the people in them as well as reflecting a topic or concept. The works reveal as much if not more about the performers than the theme. Sometimes I use abstraction like a zoomed out lens on a camera, appreciating the form in a less personal way.
Like Europe and America, dance in Australia has many different styles, drawing on concepts from both continents. Australian dance has a physical vibrancy incorporating the sensitivity and exactitude of Asian cultures as well.

Q: You have been in China for almost 2 months now, what do you think you have benefited the most from this experience?
Micheal Whaites :What I treasure the most from my experience here was the connection I established with the people and the places. They are people and places with specific faces and names that I can connect to. I cannot yet say what this could mean to me in terms of my later works or my future life. But I think the experience itself is alreay worthwhile and I believe my works might not be the same again because they will reflect my experience here in one way or another. Before I came to China, I had wished to collaborate with the company and make a work with them. Although this did not happen this time, I am sure if I have the opportunity to do it in the future, my work will definitely have a deeper level of meaning because of the prior experience in the country and with the companies, which gave me knowledge of the culture and the dancers and they about me.