A community dance program was established at Brown’s Mart in 1988. Housed under the same roof were other arts organisations such as Darwin Theatre Company, Corrugated Iron Youth Theatre, and Brown’s Mart Community Arts. The dance program worked across all areas.

PHOTO: David McMicken

Sarah Calver, the first Dance Development officer, and Tim Newth worked together on the Corrugated Iron Youth Theatre production of Living in Isolation, which travelled to Lajamanu as part of a Northern Territory-wide tour.

From this relationship a unique style of work began to emerge particularly with remote Indigenous communities. A first residency took place in Lajamanu, 1989, with another to follow in 1990. This was the foundation for a continuing relationship with the artists and people of this community, as well as many successful offshoots. This set the scene for the kind of work that Tracks is now renowned for.

Also that year, Dance on Darwin and Dance Feast were two large-scale dance events that brought together professional dancers with community and cultural dancers from a wide age range. A seniors dance group was formed for this project and continues to this day as the Grey Panthers.

David McMicken joined the mix in 1991 and in 1992 he was invited to share the position of Community Dance Officer with Sarah.

The three key artists started to create new performance works specifically about living in the Northern Territory, such as Silent Thought and Sacred Space. In 1996 these works were combined with the Lajamanu Yawalyu women and toured to the Melbourne Greenmill Festival. The tour was successful, attracting full houses and favourable mainstream press coverage.

Tracks was officially launched in 1994 and began to develop a reputation both in the Territory and nationally as working within a particular genre, that is, cross-cultural, large scale, strong movement with visuals, and with a strong connection between place and culture.

4WD - Sweat, Dust and Romance was a classic Tracks’ performance that placed the company firmly on the Australian cultural map and established the reputation of Tracks as a formidable movement-based company.

For further information the following two articles are available as downloadable PDFs and describe in some detail the philosophy of Tracks’ work:

ABC ONLINE: Maurice O'Riordan 2004 88kb

REAL TIME (April/May 2003) David McMicken and Tim Newth 72kb

You will need Acrobat Reader to view PDF files, you can download it by cliking on the icon below.