BEING THE BENJAMINS

NARELLE and Huey Benjamin are almost childhood sweethearts – they met when Narelle was about 19 and still a dance student and Huey was 22 and a session drummer. They married seven years later. Their first collaboration was on a film, Arachne, which was Narelle’s first project as a choreographer rather than a dancer, with dancers Brett Daffy and the late Russell Page. Since then all of Narelle’s choreographic projects have used Huey’s compositions. They have a daughter, Marlo, who is a professional dancer, and a son, Eddie, who is a musician.

Narelle

Describe your process together.

With Arachne, Huey composed the music and sound to the visuals after the shoot was finished. That’s the process we usually follow when working for the stage as well. He works with the video footage from the rehearsals, from the research and development period.

I’ve only ever once choreographed to an existing piece of music, and that was for the, to music by a band called The Necks. It was a really different way to work – the music directed the piece and the ideas fitted into the structure of the music. It is a very effective way of working when you have the time restraints of working with a company.