The Chunky Move artistic director shares how the power of perception has defined her new work, ‘Lucid’.

The title of choreographer Anouk van Dijk’s latest piece for her company, Melbourne-based contemporary dance troupe Chunky Move, could hardly be more apt. Lucid is a work about thought, specifically the way our minds warp our manners. In a modern society where the way we’re perceived can be carefully quantified and adjusted, moulded by Instagram filters and Facebook likes, van Dijk is holding up a mirror to the way the internal influences the external. She tells Limelight’s online editor, Maxim Boon, about this train of thought.


Before we talk about the how and the what, I’d like to know the why – for you as a choreographer, what qualities interest you?

First and foremost I love dance and physicality. During my training, I did everything, from tap dance to Spanish dance, to jazz dance, hip hop, pointe shoes, all forms of contemporary dance, forms of improvisation. You name it; I studied it, and I learnt so much from doing that because I didn’t shy away from populist styles like jazz or tap to concentrate solely on hardcore post-modernist...