Choreography
BlackLux Film and Dance Work 2023
Photo credit Shane Rozario
Inspired by an African architecture village Tiebele in Brkina Faso, BlackLux - Perspectives in timelapse is a short film/dance performance using black and white visual contrast PVC tape installation to explore objects in space, the body, the body’s relationship to space, and progressively, the relationship between multiple moving bodies in high contrast space. A true exploration of the visual representation of storytelling.
A collaboration with Shane Rozario and Lucinda Clutterbuck, performed by Sophia Ndaba, Natalie Cunzolo, Angelica Osuji, Julian Chan, Courtney Allerton and Naomi Reichart. Sound by Jack Prest.
Short film created by Reilly Baker (videography) and Byron Mark (Sound) in collaboration with Lucky Lartey, Shane Rozario, Lucinda Clutterbuck and dance artists Sophia Ndaba, Natalie Cunzolo, Angelica Osuji, Julian Chan, Courtney Allerton and Naomi Reichart. Choreography by Lucky Lartey. Produced by Kiri Morcombe.
BlackLux debuted as a 50 minute dance performance at Sydney Fringe Festival in 2022.
Exoticism 2022 (Keir Choreographic Award)
Lucky Lartey (Ghana) in collaboration with Vishnu Arunasalam (Sri Lanka) explore exotification, being exotified and contemporary masculinity, by delving deeply into the collective lived experience of people with diverse backgrounds, beyond 80s multiculturalism and box ticking. This resistance work reclaims identity in the context of Contemporary Australia through deconstructing and reconstructing the notion of what diverse contemporary work should look like in Australian society and post-colonial culture.
The work features dance and Lartey's tape
installation. This work has been created based on lived experience interviews. The artists would like to thank: Jiva Parthipan, Shyamla Eswaran, and Kaiya Aboagye for their candid, honest responses and Martin del Amo for his guidance and support in the realisation of this work.
Exoticism was performed as part of the Keir Choreographic Awards in Sydney (Carriageworks) and Melbourne (Dancehouse) in 2022.
Read the interview with Lucky Lartey about Exoticism here
Lucky's interview about his work Exoticism
In Transit 2022
In transit is a space of an imaginary exchange. The origin is rendered into memory by departure, whilst arrival continually re-emerges as an imagined real. This suspended state that pivots between chance and hope, is a state of Mallarmé’s dice where a throw can never “abolish the chance”.
In his performative interventions Lucky Lartey creates imaginary vehicles intended to aid or extend human movement. Using black tape, black and white prints, and the iconic “Ghana Must Go” synthetic bags the artist creates simple, but powerful imagery charged with manifold narratives.
— an excerpt from the exhibition text by Ivan Buljan, Curator, Eden and the Willow Gallery, Sydney
In Transit has been exhibited at Eden and the Willow Gallery and Articulate Project Space in 2022
Infusion, No Movement, No Sound with Jamestown Collective 2021
INFUSION, No movement, No sound is a powerful demonstration of the vibrancy and diversity of music and dance, a uniquely African story told against a contemporary Australian backdrop. The landscape of rhythm and music infuses original sounds that will inspire and excite audiences of all ages. Through ritual, games and music INFUSION, No Movement, No Sound reinvents rhythm and seeks to inspire cross-cultural connections and relationships.
Bringing together a global collective of dancers Lucky Lartey (Ghana), Pepsie Magonya (Zimbabwe) and Sally Dashwood (Australia) accompanied by musicians Maharshi Raval
(India), Byron Mark (Australia) and percussionist Yacou Mbaye (Senegal) INFUSION, No movement, No sound is an explosion of ancient West African rhythms infused with contemporary and traditional dance.
Stream the show via the Sydney Opera House live at home HERE
Read the review here
Moon Shadows 2020
In 2020 Lucky collaborated with Scott Watterson and choreographed a solo work to Moon Shadows.
This project responds to the Tierra composition of Moon Shadows, conceived after the composer was experiencing insomnia and going outside at night and looking at the Moon, with sound, movement, and minimalistic lighting, exploring aspects of ritual and spirituality in performance. Conceptually it aims to provide space for time out in the vein of providing pleasure.
Your personal experience will have been effective if you feel uplifted.
Like the beauty of the moon, and its many forms, at the core here is aesthetic, and bringing that into focus for an experience.
Composed by Chetan Tierra, sound Scott Watterson
Scott Watterson Copyright 2020
Full Circle 2019
A personal journey revealing how hip hop has travelled full circle to Africa.
Full Circle draws on Lucky's knowledge of traditional rhythms and dance as well as his understanding of contemporary movement practices to explore the longstanding relationship between hip hop culture and West African storytelling traditions. In this new solo, Lucky takes us on a personal journey revealing how hip hop has travelled full circle to Africa.
“I want to create a work that highlights the tradition of storytelling in West Africa and how it was used to pass on and share knowledge. How this tradition was then adopted by hip hop culture as a tool for survival and a way of giving a voice to marginalised young people”. Lucky Lartey (2018)
Full Circle debuted at Passing it on, Form Dance Projects and Riverside Theatre Dance Bites Program 2019
Watch Full Circle here
Exotic Bodies 2018
An examination of exotification and contemporary masculinity
Exotic Bodies is a collaboration between dancer and choreographer Lucky Lartey (Australia) and movement artist and choreographer Ming Poon (Singapore/Germany). Exotic Bodies is Ming and Lucky's personal response to being exotified as persons of foreign origins. They want to come together to share their experiences and use them as the materials to create performance. The body is their main subject of investigation, specifically the foreign body as seen through the lens of exotification. Thanks to the Australia Council and Singapore Dance Exchange Fund, Lucky and Ming undertook the first stage development of Exotic Bodies in Singapore in June 2017 and Berlin 2018.
Watch Exotic Bodies here
Long Walk 2015
The idea for Long Walk began with Lucky developing movements to Nelson Mandela’s speeches in his private studio work. He then developed the idea further in October 2014 as part of one week choreographic lab at Campbelltown Arts Centre by creating an eight minute solo work using the speeches of Nelson Mandela to embody his words and represent his words using movement and sign language. In doing so Lucky drew on a trajectory of movements from both contemporary dance and Afro-contemporary to inform the way in which the words were represented.
Upon being invited to India to develop a solo work Lucky thought it would be a fertile training ground for the further development of Long Walk because of the intimate connection between India and African nations shared legacies of freedom fighting, struggle and resistance and the strong connection between Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. In India, Lucky presented Long Walk as a 15 minute solo at the Attakkalari India Biennial 2015 using original music by Martin Lutz.
Watch Long Walk here