People

Somebody’s Aunt

Jane Ingall, Anne Embry, Julie Rickwood, Prue Gleeson, Sue Andrews, Suzannah Salojärvi, Nicola Pilkinton.

Somebody’s Aunt is a Canberra-based dance ensemble, who since 2005 have been creating work integrating contemporary and improvised dance, theatre, voice, music, and humour. Each dancer brings an array of life experience, telling stories from different perspectives and with a political edge. As older women the Aunts’ presence in public spaces challenges the ideas of who is a dancer and what dance can be. With a passion to communicate meaning through movement and connect with their audiences, they examine themes relevant to their lives and the world we inhabit. They create work for performance in mostly unconventional performance spaces such as art galleries, bookshops, coffee shops, public outdoor walkways and bushland, and occasionally in a theatre. The Aunts had the great pleasure of collaboration with Alison Plevey, Elizabeth Cameron Dalman, and the ADP performers in Symbiosis. They especially loved their collaboration with the rainforest. Recently they made a short film Aunts on Scooters, which saw them joyfully, safely and energy efficiently scooting around Canberra. Previous work includes: She did it HER way choreographed by Julie-Anne Long in collaboration with the Aunts.