I Want to Dance Better at Parties begins as a live docementary about five individual men's relationship to dance. These men are represented on stage by five dancers and also appear on film projected on screens suspended above. From interviews orignally conducted for a television documentary in the making, these men talk about dancing, their lives and more private thoughts and experiences.

The work begins as a more factual and informative demonstration about these men and the place dancing has in their lives and gradually evovles into a more subjective and expressive work about who they are. As these men divulge information of a much more personal nature the dance on stage create physical, dynamic portraits of each subject. The piece thus moves out of the realm of documentary into being a highly impressionistic dance work, composed of a series of imagined private dances representative of the subjects' inner lives.

FIVE MEN. FIVE STORIES.

Phillip - After the sudden and tragic death of his wife two years ago, Phillip sold the family business to concentrate on the parenting of his two young children. At a dancing party, a woman suggested that he should consider having some dancing lessons. He then called a dance school and said, "I want to learn how to dance better at parties".

Jack - When Jack turned 50, his wife finally convinced him to accompany her to her Israeli folk dancing group. As a highly regarded telecommunications engineer sepcialising in digital coding, Jack could see re-occurring and varying patterns in the dances and realised that if he could invent a code to represent the dance steps this would be a way to remember them. For the last ten years Jack has collected nearly five thousand Israeli folk dances on his online database.

Lindsay - Through dance, Lindsay found his lover and long-term partner of over ten years and through dance Lindsay lost him to another man in his clogging group.

Franc - Describing his attempts to dance as clumsy, awkward and foolish, Franc believes that dance doesn't allow him to present himself the way he really is and pretty much avoids doing it at all costs.

Deon - "Dancing is like an explosion in the body that words cannot describe", says Deon. He is a nineteen-year-old Greek boy from Wheelers Hill who is into traditional Greek folk dancing and clubbing with his friends on Friday and Saturday nights.

Media Response

"Patrick Swayze is one of the most resilient 1980s icons. Staring down the camera lens in the teen classic Dirty Dancing, he radiated sexual energy and authority, and overnight his alter ego 'Johnny' became a poster boy fixture in girls bedrooms around the world... why did many more (men) pick up a microphone to sing Seattle grunge than roll up to samba class to rescue 'Baby' out of the corner?

... The reason is simple. As one male colleague puts it, " I don't want to look like a fool". And it has captured the imagination of dance company Chunky Move, whose next work is titled I Want to Dance Better.

...Just as grown men don't cry, emotional restraint forbids a physcial reaction to music.

...Another theory is that men are embarassed at the attention drawn to their body.

...In challenging men's fears and social stereotypes, works like I Want to Dance Better at Parties will hopefully loosen hips, torsos and upper lips, and unearth Patrick Swayze's lost male admirers."

STATE OF THE ARTS - OCTOBER TO DECEMBER 2004

"A DJ who won't dance, a retiree with a folk obession, a horny clubber. Part documentary, part live performance, Chunky Move's latest promises to pick up on the strengths of its earlier work Wanted." THE AGE Issue #1 Novemberr 04

Information from http://www.chunkymove.com