In The Haus: Alisdair Macindoe

Living and creating on Woi Wurrung country, Alisdair Macindoe is a groundbreaking multidisciplinary choreographer whose work daringly traverses dance, sound, electronics, coding, and text. Macindoe’s artistic inquiries delve into themes as varied as automated dance and Artificial Intelligence to waste, climate change, and the exploration of identity in a self-obsessed age. His recent endeavour, ‘THREE’ at Brisbane Powerhouse, continues this innovative exploration, promising audiences a unique intersection of technology and human expression.

With a career adorned with Green Room awards, a Helpmann Award, and a New York Bessie, Macindoe’s contributions to the arts resonate far beyond Melbourne’s borders. His works, like “FORGERY” and “SYSTEM ERROR,” showcase a relentless pursuit of challenging the status quo within the choreographic field. As a former resident director for Lucy Guerin Inc and a recipient of the Chloe Munro Mid-Career Fellowship, his influence shapes contemporary dance’s future, making ‘THREE’ a highly anticipated production.

In this In The Haus feature, Theatre Haus spoke to Macindoe about their practice, dedication to dance and choreographic design. We also learnt more about Madindoe’s new work ‘Dull Boy’, part of the ‘THREE’ series at Brisbane Powerhouse, which uniquely blends choreography with environmental sustainability by repurposing old advertising posters into dynamic set pieces.

We’d love to know more about the beginning of your career – where and how did you get your start? 

I grew up in a mostly single-parent family headed by my mother Xanya Mamunya, who was a concert harp teacher and freelance harp player who specialised in Debussy. A lot of the adults around me were in classical music and I began my dance training in ballet, which in that context felt almost like towing the family line.

After training at both VCASS and VCA in dance, my first gig was performing a work by my long-term mentor Lucy Guerin who took me under her wing and fostered my growth as a contemporary dancer. As someone who started dancing at around the age of 3, it is hard to pinpoint why I loved and pursued it, dance has always just felt like a part of my personality.

What or who were some of your early influences or inspirations that shaped your career?

As a kid, I loved the ballet and used to regularly attend the Australian Ballet performances. Stephen Heathcote and David McAllister were my ballet champions until I discovered contemporary dance, seeing Chunk Move / Gideon Obarzanek’s ‘Bonehead’ in 1996. The show blew me away, in particular, Byron Perry and Luke Smiles moved in ways that were strangely familiar and they became my contemporary dance heroes. I have had the incredible honour of working with Gideon, Byron, and Luke over the years which I value to no end.

What are some of the most defining moments or milestones in your career so far?

There are a bunch of milestones in my career and I can name the important ones… Getting into VCASS, getting into VCA, dancing in works by Lucy Guerin and Chunky Move, receiving 5 Green Room awards, Receiving a New York Bessie award alongside Antony Hamilton while touring our work ‘Meeting’ to 35 venues around the world, receiving an Australian Helpmann award for best male dancer for performing a Stephanie Lake show, receiving a Sidney Myer Foundation Creative Fellowship, receiving a Mid-career Chloe Munro Fellowship.

However, my goals and the things that I see as defining me are always far more narrow and specific. An example of a defining moment for me, for example, was the first time I switched on the music robots that I created for the work ‘Meeting’, and we heard for the first time what they sounded like. Or the moment I first tested the AI dance generation system I have now deployed in several new works. Or the first time we performed ‘Reference Material’, a work I made about the dance linage I come from. I guess my main driver is creative exploration and the genesis of new things.

What is a quirky fact about you? 

I have been in a loving and stable relationship for 15 years now, and I identify first as a husband and second as someone who works in dance. I love mayonnaise, I have been gluten-free since the late 1980s, I have pretty bad psoriasis and I am a blood/lymphoma cancer survivor.

What are you currently working on and how has that creative process been?

I have been creating a new work I am calling ‘Dull Boy’ for ADC’s THREE at Brisbane Powerhouse’s OHM Festival. The creative process has been this great collaboration with the cast and design team where we are re-working / re-using old advertising posters from key arts organisations as props and set to dance in, under, and with. I am both the choreographer and composer/sound designer of ‘Dull Boy’, so it has been a daily routine of creating choreographic frameworks for the ADC dancers to generate material with during the day, and then creating sound design in response to the choreography in the evenings.

I always have many projects on the boil as the gestation period for dance can be anything from a few months to quite a few years. Another big one at the moment is a project I will premiere in Melbourne later this year called ‘PLAGIARY’ which features ten dancers performing a piece that is being described to them live by an AI computer program.

What’s in your rehearsal bag that you can’t go without? 

As well as being a dancer I am also a computer artist, so I always have my laptop with me in the studio for something, be it creating music, computer programming, developing interfaces for dance performance or even just to touch-type notes while watching dancers.

Do you have a reading, teaching/advice, institution or resource that changed your life/perspective, which you’d recommend to others?

If you want to be an independent dancer or dance maker, you MUST see as much independent dance as you possibly can.

What advice would you give to a young person today aspiring to walk in your shoes? 

Stickability, longevity, perseverance, if you can’t beat your competitors at what you do, you can likely outlast them. I am the tortoise when compared to my high school colleagues in the context of the hare/tortoise fable. Know that if you enjoy the time it takes to succeed it’s easy to outlast the competition.

What are your future aspirations or projects that you’re excited about? Do you have a dream role?

I have never held a full-time role or position, it would be a dream to one day be employed with a contract that is longer than three months full-time, which is my maximum over the last 20 years. I have dreamt of being the director of a dance company since I was a child, but nowadays one can make dance independently and still have a large impact. I am quite happy with a freelance independent life, so if heading up a company never eventuates, I don’t mind. What is important to me is to be creating new work in collaboration with artists and institutions that align with my core values and interests, endeavouring to progress contemporary dance with a conscientious spirit, and make valuable cultural contributions in doing so.

Theatre Haus is the ‘home of theatre’, where, what or who do you call home?

Without literally publicising my address, home is when I am with my wife Julie and our cat Morris and the three of us are in our cute little apartment in unceded stolen Woi Wurrung country, South Central Brunswick, Merri Bek, Naarm, Melbourne.

Don’t miss Alisdair Macindoe’s latest work ‘Dull Boy’ as part of Australasian Dance Collectives’ production ‘THREE’ at Brisbane Powerhouse. Find show information and purchase tickets here.

Alternatively, sign up to Alisdair’s newsletter here, and learn more about this talented multidisciplinary choreographer at his official website.

Want to feature in our In The Haus series? Email [email protected].

Headshot Photography by Sam Roberts.