AC Arts graduate to perform in Holland

Rebecca Jones

TAFE SA Adelaide Centre for the Arts (AC Arts) 3rd year Bachelor of Dance Performance student Rebecca Jones will perform with South Australia’s Leigh Warren & Dancers at the esteemed Holland Dance Festival.

Rebecca, a graduating student started dancing when she was just 4 years old and at the age of 20 will perform in the critically acclaimed production of Shimmer on 6 and 7 November in The Hague. The production combines live movement and music with cutting-edge visual technology and is set to South Australian composer Graeme Koehne’s score Shaker Dancers.

Rebecca met and worked with Leigh Warren earlier this year through the AC Arts 'choreographer in residence program’ and subsequent production. Rebecca was honoured when Leigh asked her to replace an injured dancer for their performance in Holland. "It all happened so quickly and I had to learn the piece in two weeks," she said.

This is a fantastic opportunity, as a student, to work with the company dancers and Leigh. I'm a huge fan of his work, so learning Shimmer has been amazing. It's a physically challenging piece, but has beautiful choreography and music with the live Zephyr Quartet.

With two public showings in Adelaide and the help of company members and Leigh, Rebecca is finding her feet in the piece and is excited about performing in two shows at the Holland Dance Festival.

"Shimmer is a very musical piece," she said. "You have to keep in time and listen very carefully, and I love the partnering and having the experience of learning the repertoire and also working at a higher level."

Rebecca came to AC Arts with a background in ballet and over the past three years has broadened her repertoire to include contemporary dance, yoga, pilates, acting, music, anatomy kinesiology and dance history.