Meet Julie, the girl behind the concept of the Jukebox...
> Can you tell us few words about you?
My name is Julie, I'm 34, I’m French and I’m a dance geek. I moved to New Zealand in 2006 only because I love speaking English. I'm currently a dance teacher at City Dance (Auckland) and the director/choreographer for Pineapple Productions. And when I don't dance or do something dance related I usually watch as many movies and TV shows as I can while enjoying a bowl of soup or a huge cup of tea.
> How are you involved in the Jukebox Dance Show?
I am the director and choreographer of the show, and one of the dancers as well.
> When and why did you start dancing? What about choreography and direction?
Apparently I was dancing before I even knew how to walk... I don’t know know if it’s a legend or if it’s true but I quite like the idea. I always remember dancing in my living room, creating shows with my cousins for our parents. And when I was 7 I managed to convince my mum to start taking dance classes. She agreed provided it was jazz dance. And I never stopped. Since then I’ve been adding every year new dance styles and new classes to my schedule. I’m not happy unless I dance minimum 10 hours per week...
Regarding choreography I started when I was 13 for a dance competition. It was a SciFi dance solo where I was in space stuck in a big bubble. I was wearing a black unitard covered in a bubble wrap armor made by my dad. I loved every single part of the creation process, from choosing the music, coming up with the concept, trying to find moves that would show my predicament, imagining the costume with my dad, etc. I realised that was actually what I wanted to do. Even more than performing (which I love don’t get me wrong) my real passion is to create choreographies. That’s how I ended up 10 years later doing a Masters in dance with a major in choreography and company direction.
In the end it all comes back to one thing: I’m a dance geek. I love anything dance and I love sharing it with others whether it’s by teaching, performing, choreographing, taking classes or having a passionate chat... Anything, as long as it gets out there.
> When and why did you create Pineapple Productions?
I officially created Pineapple Productions (meaning I opened a bank account under that name) in August 2011. But actually Pineapple started before that.
In 2008 I created a “off the record” jazz/contemporary dance class on Saturday afternoons for my regular students who were motivated to do a bit more than 1 hour of dance per week. The group grew, evolved. We started performing here and there and and I decided to call ourselves the Pineapple Lumps because at the time I was performing a burlesque solo wearing a sequin pineapple bra.
At the same time I started choreographing the Cabaret show The Red Room Revue with Aroha Wikohika. The show ran for about 4 years with 5 seasons. It was quite pleasant to go back to the cabaret scene, so with some of the cast members we decided to form a burlesque and vintage dance troupe called My Oh My, for private functions and to get a chance to perform in those styles a bit more in between seasons.
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| With Delphine and Deryn |
And then in 2011 we got the idea with Aroha to organize a French cabaret show for Bastille Day. So obviously I created a French Cancan choreography. To make it easier I recruited the dancers in both Pineapple Lumps and My Oh My, under the name “Oh Mes Ananas” (Oh My Pineapples). And it worked! It was fun and exhilarating to share a bit of French culture with the audience and with dancers I had worked with for a while.
So I thought, why not make this official, having a proper dance company that would be home to all my creations, to all my groups. And it became obvious then that this company would be called “Pineapple Productions”. It became obvious as well that what I had in mind for the company would be too much to handle by myself, so I asked Geraldine if she would be interested in building Pineapple with me. And here we are a year later or so, able to produce our own show!!!
> Why did you create the Jukebox Dance Show and how did you come up with the concept?
Well it is a mix a several things.
While studying choreography at uni I saw a bunch of modern/contemporary dance shows where the running order was decided randomly. Some by rolling the dice, some by having the sound engineer stacking the CDs in a different order every night, etc. I always liked the idea of un show where the running order would be different every time, because it makes it truly unique. A bit like when you go see a band in concert twice and the setlist is different, it’s so exciting (well at least I find it really exciting).
But there are 2 things that always annoyed me with those dance shows. First, you never get to see, as an audience member, the roll of the dice, the stacking of the CDs. You always see only the result. Who knows what really happened backstage?
Second, I remember my teachers at uni saying stuff like “this is really challenging for the dancers”. Yeah, right! Even if there was no trickery, the running order was anyway set before the dancers step on stage, it’s not decided as the show progresses. On top of it they usually don’t have any costume changes. So challenging, challenging, bof...
I always thought to make those concepts really efficient the only way was to let the audience choose on the spot, or at least to do the rolling of the dice on stage.
On the other hand I always wanted to create a show, that would allow me to showcase and share with everybody all the dance styles that I’ve learned and that I like.
Then one day I was in my favorite diner in Disneyland Paris, there was a jukebox on the side. I was looking at the set-list wondering what I would choose, noticing all the variety, thinking that would be awesome to dance on all those tracks back to back, switching from rock-n-roll to disco and it hit me. That was the way to go! Applying the jukebox concept to a dance show.
So I kept the idea in the back of my mind thinking that nobody would ever accept to do that kind of show, not even knowing if they would perform at all, not being able to anticipate... And then 6 years later, the pineapple team has made my dream come true!
> Do you have a favourite choreography in the setlist?
This is hard since I created all of them. Hehe...
I could say my solo, but I created it 3 years ago, and I’m a bit over it now. I still enjoy performing it, but it's probably time to move on. I’m thinking about creating a brand new one for this upcoming season so maybe in a month or 2 it will become my favourite choreography.
But for the moment, the two that I relate to the most are the contemporary choreographies
Keep Me Quiet and
Immigrant song. They are really MY style. I am quite attached to them (maybe a bit too much).
And I guess the ones that I have the most fun with on stage performing alongside the other girls is
Babies of the Blitz and
Cloclo medley. They are both quite different (40s pin up and French disco) but full of energy and so enjoyable to dance as a group!
> Anything else to add?
I wish I could be in the audience of a Jukebox dance show once and get to decide what the dancers are going to perform.
