Wombarra dance artist brings pop-up show to new Berry festival

Berry is preparing to host its first OpenField Arts Festival, a family-friendly celebration of contemporary art, music, dance and theatre to be held at its school of arts, community halls and outdoor reserves from June 22-25.

Wombarra local Emma Saunders will be among the artists who repurposing heritage locations as performance spaces for their works.

An award-winning dance artist, choreographer, curator, director and educator, Emma will present a condensed, site-specific pop-up production of Encounter, a piece originally commissioned in 2019.

“Encounter, originally for me, was commissioned by Sydney Festival and FORM Dance Projects and was celebrating the indomitable spirit of youth and was originally questioning the connection between the regional dancers from Bega – FLING Physical Theatre – and my Western Sydney WE ARE HERE Company, which is a super diverse bunch of dancers,” Emma said.

“In its essence, [it’s] looking at the connection between the regions and the urban environments and was originally performed with a 52-piece orchestra with an original composition by Jodi Phillis from The Clouds – who's also local – and Amanda Brown from The Go-Betweens, which anyone who's over 40 will know that those are absolute cultural musical icons.

“It's a bit of a celebration of, I think in a way, the spirit of youth; but not so much youth, maybe just humanity and relentlessness and how to survive; and I think all that's done through movement, the coming of age, coming into yourself.

“I think there's a lot of universal themes within Encounter that we can all connect with that involve how to be together and yet apart, the different kind of faces and the different kinds of versions of ourselves we show the world. We sort of play into that.”

Last performed at the Sydney Opera House forecourt in May 2022 as part of UnWrapped – an ongoing Sydney Opera House performance series – Encounter Berry will embody much of the same symbolisation while becoming a production that embraces the particulars of the suburb around the Berry School of Arts.

“It feels like it's a new version every time we do it, and often it's very much made in response to where we land,” Emma said.

“This is a very colonised space to work within as our backdrop… but we are really excited to find out and ask some questions around the history of Berry, how to incorporate them into the words that are written and then ultimately be incorporated into the work that we perform at Berry.

“I work with a writer, Felicity Castagna, who's also a Western Sydney-based writer to research into the local area where I do Encounter, so we'll be doing new text for Berry, [and] Warren Foster, who's an Aboriginal Yuin man, he'll be our MC, he'll be delivering the words spoken.”

Featuring an ensemble of eight dancers – many original cast members – Emma says the aim of Encounter Berry is to not only entertain the festival crowds but to include them.

“It's a really immersive way of watching dance; it’s a really joyful way of watching dance,” she said.

“It's basically a series of six to eight small vignettes of movement that happens in and around people.

“At the last minute we invite people to – if they want to – join us in dancing and [although] it's not a massive thing, it's something that's very special.”

Inclusion seems to be the mantra of OpenField Arts Festival as the Curatorium – the collective of artists who have organised the event – has lined up a program featuring local and visiting multidisciplinary performers.

“[The Curatorium] have all worked so hard behind the scenes,” Emma said. “Also for me to be sitting aside such wonderful artists in the program, it's a privilege and an honour to be bringing Encounter to this area.

“This is still the most local I've managed to get Encounter to where I live. As the director of the work, it feels to me a very special version in my heart because this is where I live.

“I think that OpenField is going to bring to Berry what's already at Berry, but it is going to offer a few new opportunities that I think the people of Berry are going to really love [because it] strikes me as a really artistic place already – I feel like they're building on what's already there.”

From June 22 to 25, the OpenField Arts Festival will present entertainment, including music, dance and theatre, plus workshops, artist talks and panel discussions. Events are mostly free. To see the full event program, visit the OpenField Arts Festival website.