Q&A – Christine Devaney: choreographer and performer | Debut of children’s show blending dialogue, humor and dance

Christine Devaney during a performance

On Saturday and Sunday, “Chalk About,” a playful show aimed primarily at children, will debut at the Macao Cultural Centre. Performed by Christine Devaney and Niels Weijier – and designed and choreographed by Devaney in collaboration with Leandro Kees – the show attempts to explore some of the ‘ultimate’ questions of human existence, like the meaning of personal identity and of life.
Devaney, a Scottish choreographer and performer by trade, formed the production group “Curious Seed” back in 2005 with the aim of creating engaging and thought-provoking performance work that challenges the scope of movement-based performances.
She sat down with the Times to talk about “Chalk About,” her distinctive mesh of dance, conversation and humor, and the importance of encouraging children to ponder life’s biggest mysteries.

Macau Daily Times (MDT) – Why has the show been designed as an interactive performance? What was the inspiration behind this?
Christine Devaney (CD) – The roots of “Chalk About” came from a week-long workshop, where Argentinian choreographer Leandro Kees (who I’d never met or worked with before) and I talked, danced, drew and played together – sometimes all at the same time! – as a way of getting to know each other.
This process of two people from very different backgrounds, gradually building a friendship through the sharing of life stories and dancing, became the basis and the heart of the work – and is still really what the show is about. We wanted to bring this chatty and open playfulness to the audience.
I still love the moment [when] we invite people onto the stage with us at the start to help us set up the first scene. It reminds me of who this performance is for.

MDT – Why is it important to encourage children to question their identity and ask bigger questions? What sort of thinking does this promote?
CD – I think it’s important for all of us to consider these questions.
The way that we encourage the audience to do this in the show is through two performers. We offer stories, questions and physical metaphors that open up these topics.
I would hate the show to come across as preaching or telling the audience what to think. [… Instead] I hope that it promotes independent thinking and other ways of seeing those [whom] we sometimes make presumptions about, including ourselves!
For all its playfulness, “Chalk About” is also complex, layered and seems to create a space for self-reflection, and leads peoples to think: “What’s my story?”
That’s important to me.

MDT – What is the benefit of mixing different forms of performance, dance, conversation and humor in a children’s show?
CD – This is something I do in different ways with most of my work. These are exactly the things that excite me and interest me, so it felt quite natural to bring all this [into a single performance] for children.
When children play, they can move quite easily from one mode of playing to another, so I think they accept how we shift from one way of expressing what we want to say in the show to another.
It’s also interesting to play with children’s (and adults’) preconceptions of what a play, a dance show or theater experience can be.

MDT – How does “Chalk About” compare with some of the group’s earlier work, and is it more of an extension or a departure from it?
CD – This is the first time we have made a show specifically for a young audience, but I would say that some aspects of it are an extension of my creative interests and others are a departure.
For example, we made a show in 2007 called “Code Butterfly,” with 13 teenage girls and five professional female performers in the show together. My interest then was how these young girls, almost women, were dealing with the transitional time in their lives. […] Although there are no children performing with us in “Chalk About,” all of the conversations we had with children helped shape the show – and in fact their voices feature in the soundtrack.

MDT – What’s next?
CD – We’re currently developing a show called “Teenage Trilogy,” which is about being a teenager now and older people remembering their teenage years. We’ve been interviewing lots of people about their personal experiences, [since] I usually like to [collect] contributions to the work from [the intended] audience.