Bangarra founder and frontman Stephen Page has just returned from Melbourne, where he screened Spear, his first feature, at ACMI.
The dance film, which premiered at Toronto last September, sprang from an early Bangarra piece of the same name.
"When I created Spear in 2000, we had Archie Roach singing his poetic, streetwise songs onstage. Hunter [Page-Lochard, the director's son and star of both Spear and the upcoming Cleverman] was a six year-old onstage. It was one of Wayne Blair's first acting jobs".
So many years later, Spear is now Page's first feature, though the director is no stranger to filmmaking.
"I did a dance film called Colours in 1990 that I choreographed with Victoria Taylor for the Sydney Dance Company. It was all based on colours, so each colour had a short dance story and then it was all patched together. I think Screen Australia was involved. I only got reminded about it four months ago, I forgot I actually did it".
"I was always interested in DV8, Lloyd Newson's UK-based physical theatre dance company that worked in film and uprooted their stage shows and put them in streets and so forth. And then I've worked as a choreographer with Wayne Blair or Rachel Perkins, more narrative traditional filmmakers".
"I've been approached to direct narrative films. I don't know why I've never done it. I think it's because I've been so occupied at Bangarra. I think all the years of assisting and supporting all those black storytellers is something I've held onto".
Page tested the waters in Sand, his contribution to Rob Connolly's compendium film The Turning.
"I worked on Sand and had such a great time. It was only ten minutes and had no dialogue. We shot it down at Cronulla pretending it was a Tim Winton WA landscape".
Much of that crew – cinematographer Bonnie Elliott, producer John Harvey, line producer Belinda Mravicic – transitioned over to Spear.
"When Rob spoke to me about adapting one of my works [for a feature], I had to think about what would translate", said Page.
"I wanted it to be accessible in its narrative and in its form. I could run off and do my version of Fame or West Side Story, with lots of dialogue, or I could make it a Bangarra experience on film and not rely on dialogue. Spear was the one that jumped to my head. There was this diversity of aboriginal men in it, and it was always about them responding to the 21st century".
Connolly introduced Page to the Adelaide Film Festival's HIVE Initiative, which aims to bring artists from disparate fields together and nurture their ideas in the film space.
According to Page, the collaboration between Connolly's Arenamedia and Bangarra is a model for what HIVE is able to facilitate.
"Our lighting designer at Bangarra got to work with a great gaffer, and our head mechanist got to work with different teams on set".
Connolly also paired Page with screenwriter Justin Monjo.
"Rob and Justin went to NIDA together. We worked together on Sand. We had a good creative time together talking about setting up worlds and atmospheres for the silence of this drama to play out".
"And so when we got to work on Spear, we had a 39-page scriptment, and somehow we survived on those thirty-nine pages. Justin was really like a dramaturg in theatre".
"Spear had all the elements I thought you could probably expand [on in a film]. The feature is 78 minutes or something – and Spear was only 38 minutes on stage. So I had to get with Justin [Monjo] and expand that".
That process involved inserting and then dispensing with linguistic flourishes.
"There were times when Justin would say 'I think he should look up to the sky at the end and say "a foot in each world, and a heart in none", and we'd try that, and it was a little bit pretentious because here we were watching the whole film through mood and feeling and all of a sudden dialogue was being spoonfed".
"We loved working together, and Justin was always supportive of me sticking to my guns".
In formulating the film, Page had two options:
"Do I want to throw four or five cameras up in the drama theatre and shoot different frame sizes and cut it like a NT Live presentation, or do I take the work and uproot it from its proscenium arch and move it on location"?
He went for the latter, and shot the film quickly.
"We shot Spear in three five day weeks. When I speak to Rachel Perkins or Warwick Thornton, they just look at me and go 'really'? It was grueling, but I prepared myself by building that relationship with Bonnie [Elliott]".
"In the beginning we did picture cut-outs and storyboards because it was all visual. Because it wasn't traditional narrative, we were able to concentrate more on photography. And the music already existed, so it was just finding the right collage of music. I deliberately spent four weeks rehearsing with the camera, with the dancers, in the studio".
So how was directing Spear on-screen versus on the stage?
"The layers of dimension that you can play with in film are different. Obviously if I'm in the theatre I can't really see a close-up of the dancer's face unless I'm sitting in the front row. You're observing from the other side of the fence".
"I think there are holes in Spear, of course. There's always things you'd like to have done better if you had more time and if you had Alejandro and Leonardo's budget (laughs)".
"I remember trying to find an editor for Spear, and they [editors] just thought it was way too ambitious. There's no way you can edit this film in five weeks, they said".
Page was saved when The Babadook's editor Simon Njoo came on board.
"I sent it to him and he read it and he just loved the form. I said: five weeks? He said we're not dealing with narrative, we're not dealing with actors' dialogue, we're dealing with music and movement and you've already got the music there that you've chosen. So really, we are the narrative".
"It was about about creating the narrative through the cutting", Page said. "I learnt so much from Simon".
Asked where he fits in the Australian film landscape, Page tells IF "there's something potent about black storytelling. You look at Samson and Delilah, you look at Ivan Sen's films. When you think that the first colour film was Jedda, and that landscape. It has an identity".
Now the director is figuring out what's next.
"Rob and Justin wouldn't let me go away (laughs). I'm actually going to try doing a narrative. Justin and I have a few stories we're workshopping".
"I'd love to have a look at another Bangarra work that's set in the 1800's. I did a work based on the life of Mathinna, the aboriginal Tasmanian girl who was brought up by the governor, John Franklin, and his wife Jane in the mid 1800s. There's a famous painting that the artist Thomas Bock drew of her, in which she's got a shaven head. They adopted this young Aboriginal girl and made her live with them at Government House".
Until then, Page is happy to take a breather from the film set.
"It's work, man. I directed 1000 people in the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony and closing ceremony, and I thought I would probably retire after that (laughs), but I was way too young and I didn't have enough money to survive. But filmmaking's another kettle of fish".
Spear will have a limited two-week release in cinemas from March 10, before screening on the ABC later in the year.
The film was produced by Arenamedia in association with Bangarra Dance Theatre and Brown Cab Productions. It's distributed by CinemaPlus in Australia with International Sales handled by Level K, and financed by the HIVE initiative, an initiative of Adelaide Film Festival, in partnership with the Australia Council for the Arts, Screen Australia and ABC Arts.
Screenings will take place at the following venues:
Cinema Nova, Melbourne, VIC
Q&A screening: 13 March – with Stephen Page, Aaron Pederson and John Harvey
Luna Outdoor, Perth, WA
Q&A screenings: 10 and 11 March – with John Harvey
http://outdoor.lunapalace.com.au
NFSA Arc Cinema, Canberra, ACT
Q&A screening: 12 March – with Stephen Page
Dendy Opera Quays and Newtown, Sydney, NSW
Sawtell Cinema, Sawtell, NSW
Majestic Cinemas Nambour, Nambour, QLD