Endangered Productions loves having talented guests visit and perform with our community. It inspires and motivates us. Our own performers benefit from seeing the work of new people and learn from working alongside them. It keeps our standards high.
RAYMA JOHNSON and Isaac Clark
We were lucky to have Rayma Johnson choreograph and dance her interpretation of Edvard Grieg's 'Morning Music' from the Peer Gynt Suite at our Nordic Noir show.
Rayma has toured nationally and internationally and developed and enriched her practice at the Redfern, Aboriginal and Islander, and Bangarra Dance Theatres. She is a proud Wiradjuri woman who strongly believes of the power of culture to communicate and unite.
Rayma brought decades of experience as a dancer, plus the unique insights of someone who is also both a choreographer and a teacher. She choreographed the dance sequence for the 'In the Hall of the Mountain King' music for her colleague Isaac Clark.
Emma slaytor and Theo van leeuwen
On opening night of our Double Trouble performance we had the joy of hearing the jazz stylings of this remarkable singer and pianist.
Emma trained at the Adelaide Conservatorium and after graduating, she joined Opera Australia, sharing a stage at one point with Dame Joan Sutherland. Her collaborator was Theo van Leeuwen – an internationally acclaimed linguist - and wonderful jazz pianist.
They opened the performance with some standards, including the beloved songs 'The Nearness of You' by Hoagy Carmichael and 'Easy Living' by Billie Holliday, and then went to Brazil with composer Antonio Carlos Jobim's Bossa beats. The second set was devoted to Horace Silver, an American pianist and composer who brought some funk back into jazz in the early 50s, the age of bebop.
The audience was delighted. As one of our reviewers said: "More please!"