Liesel Zink is in rehearsal right now for a new work coming to Metro Arts Allies; she has created, choreographed, and is performing in A Collection of Various Selves, an appropriate title, perhaps, for this multi-faceted artist.
I ask Liesel whether she thinks of herself predominantly as one or other of these roles? It’s flexible. ‘I have done a few movement rather than dance projects,’ there is a difference, ‘and I am now working more with actors as choreographer and beside them as performer.’ She continues, ‘I really enjoy shaping natural movement with actors, and I’m starting to combine the two in my own practice more and more.’ What also emerges as we chat for about an hour is her interest in psychology, research, body language, and the minutiae of daily human exchange as feeders for her own creativity.
A QUT graduate in Fine Arts (Dance), Liesel’s Honours research delved into body language. As she developed as a dancer she started to become interested in how we communicate in everyday ways through gesture and body-language. As far as story-telling is concerned, she examined the ways these are told through movement rather than words, and at how we abstract natural movement and the move from pedestrian into dance and heightened states. ‘It seemed quite natural to move into theatre – not high end virtuosic dance but messages through physical story-telling.’
Liesel grew up in Bowral in NSW where she learned ballet and thrived on its demands and the strict training regime. ‘I loved the challenge of ballet, never to be perfect, to stretch a bit more, try a bit harder. But I also enjoyed academic studies, and am fascinated by the body and psychology.’ She began contemporary dance training in second year at QUT and also branched out into choreography, which she likens to ‘a maths equation. Choreography engaged with my intellect in a different way and, all of a sudden, I was trying to find a balance between spatial patterns, shapes, spaces, and dynamics. That engaged me in a different, analytical way.’ She likes examining simple human behaviours, ‘how we organise our spaces, how we relate as human beings. When I procrastinate, for example, I clean.’ She confesses to loving studying the psychology and what she calls ‘the weight’ behind very simple situations. Continue reading “Liesel Zink (Interview 25)”