Commissioned by West Australia Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA)

For 18 dancers 

Premiered in 2014

New Skin explores fear, the ability to face it, and the choice to overcome it. 

I noticed, upon my arrival in Perth, that there was much interest in the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight 370, possibly because Australians are dependent on air travel to get to any other country. The work is set on Flight 370. It encompasses the ultimate fear: being locked in a small place and knowing that the worst fate awaits.

We know the flight ended in tragedy, yet we don’t know how. Most importantly, we don’t know what the passengers felt at the time. Some might have been in denial, panicked or angry. Others, might have accepted their fate with some quiet serenity. Knowing that the outcome was inescapable, perhaps some of them coped with the fear in a different way. Maybe they managed, amidst of the worst situation imaginable, to think of what made their life whole, to hold the hand of a loved one, to be fully present and with some form of peace.

The work brings this flight as an extreme example to the question: Is it possible to find peace within the inevitable.

Production: West Australia Academy of Performing Arts