The September Forecast by Andrea Lam
- supercelldance
- Sep 30, 2021
- 3 min read
Updated: May 24, 2022
Using Dance to Explore Identity
Before I became me, I didn’t know who I was.
I knew where I was born, I knew who my parents were, I knew my school, my story, but I didn’t know how to occupy, hold and claim my own body. I absorbed and internalised societal beliefs such as shame and smallness. A tall and solidly framed woman, I wanted to be small because that was my understanding of what it meant to be feminine, to be female. It was all about what other people thought, and how I was perceived…
As women, we are brought up to believe that how we are perceived is more valuable than the contents of our being. At least, this is how I received it. I find that so many of us live in these vessels, our bodies, without a real connection to it, we are more in our heads than in our bodies and our heads are often reactive. Many of us live without understanding the intricate systems that hold our bodies together, giving it power and working tirelessly to sustain us. Even as dancers, oftentimes in choreography classes, we try to visually replicate or reflect back what the teacher or choreographer has given us without necessarily understanding where and how it should be felt. Often, dancers who lack awareness will replicate hip isolations by leaning their upper body the opposite way.
Dance gave me the power to own my space in an unexpected way. It was through assuming different characters, that I began believing my own hype. As someone who started dancing as an adult, where my technique fell short, my face worked overtime to convince the audience that I was “the one”. It was through portraying different characters that I began to feel confident in owning my space and body, in being as big and as femme as I wanted to be, as camp as I wanted to be. I was creating my own storyline; I was my own main character; I was exploring who I was and I was in the driver’s seat of my story.
In 2016, I was experiencing a career high. I had created choreography for 2 touring Bollywood stars; I had collaborated with Queensland Symphony Orchestra; I had 32 shows over 8 days at QPAC’s Out of the Box; my company had been offered a tour to New Zealand, it was while experiencing all these highs that my left patella dislocated and tore my ACL. It was through overcoming this injury that I deepened my relationship, appreciation and connection to my own body. Getting significantly injured, led me to study and gain a deeper understanding of my anatomy. As someone who was hyper flexible but without the strength to back it up, I had lacked alignment and awareness, and it led me into trouble.
We never know what we don’t know… I felt guilty and responsible towards my students and team to pass on understanding of anatomy and alignment, so no one would have to experience the injury that I had experienced.
As I began healing, and studying the systems of the body, I begin to feel a much deeper ownership over my body and my relationship to my body and its systems, literally from inside out. I was slowly connecting to muscles that were underused and gaining control over them and it’s given me such a deep connection to the systems that hold my being together.
I am still on the journey of discovering who I am, but these are small ways in which dance has helped me understand myself, and own my own body and space.
MEET THE ARTIST: ANDREA LAM
Andrea Lam is the founder & director of Dance Masala Bollywood Dance Company, one of the largest independent Bollywood Dance Companies in Australia. She has been in the Dance Industry for 13 years. In 2012, she launched Dance Masala Bollywood Dance Company. In addition to Dance Masala, Andrea is an alumnus of the illustrious Australia India Youth Dialogue, attending the conference in Delhi & Chennai as part of the 30-person delegation in January 2020. She also produced the Bollywood Australia Dance Convention (BADC) in 2019, a three-day expo-style event with professional development, industry events and a dance competition aimed to unify the Indian Dance Community while capacity building. Andrea also has a YouTube Channel with a following of 57K+. Prior to work within dance, Andrea created weird art-pop in multiple projects, and bizarre artworks that combined costume, video installation, projection and performance and has had work featured in ‘New Weird Australia’; ‘John Peel Radio’ (UK); ‘This is not Art’; ‘2High Festival’ and The ‘OtherFilm’ Festival.
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