Speeches
Tuesday, 10 June 2025
Nature Moves Book Launch
I am pleased to have known Elizabeth’s family since childhood.
I knew her parents and met Andreas (when he was very young), and her late partner Jan, and our lives are connected in several other ways.
We’ve both spent time living in the Canberra region and have watched the water in Lake George/Weereewa rise and fall over the past 40 years. We’ve both worked in Taiwan, and as Governor I am proud to support Australian Dance Theatre, the company Elizabeth founded sixty years ago.
My family and I have also visited Elizabeth’s beautiful property ‘Mirramu’ on the shores of Lake George and share her interest in combatting climate change and biodiversity and building environmental sustainability – Elizabeth powerfully through art, me through vice-regal and diplomatic roles.
We also share a respect for and indeed a love of Australia’s First Nations people – in Canberra the Ngunnawal and Ngambri and in Adelaide the Kaurna. We’ve also been fortunate to get to know Anangu Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara and been shown by them special places, such as Cave Hill.
All of which means it is such a pleasure to be with you today for the Adelaide launch of Elizabeth Cameron Dalman’s book, ‘Nature Moves’.
As I am sure everyone here knows, I am not, however, a dancer and am thankful that did not disqualify me from the role I am about to perform.
South Australia is proud to be home to Australian Dance Theatre, the oldest contemporary dance company in Australia.
I thank Elizabeth for the fundamental contribution she made to establishing a contemporary dance culture in South Australia and Australia in the 1960s, when the form was first emerging.
Through its departure from classical forms, Elizabeth’s work helped to build the perception of SA as a home for innovation and leadership in the arts.
Under Daniel’s leadership, Australian Dance Theatre today retains a reputation as a national and international leader in contemporary dance, continually redefining and pushing the artform.
That’s impressive for a company which is celebrating its 60th birthday this year.
Reading ‘Nature Moves’, I was struck by Elizabeth’s character, in particular her courage and conviction: pursuing a provocative style for Australian Dance Theatre in the face of critics, beginning a whole new life in Italy and then in Canberra, and writing openly about her mystical experiences and deep relationship with nature - in a culture that can lend little weight to either.
Elizabeth’s communion with nature through dance has resulted in deeply creative work.
Her site-specific performances - in the Adelaide Hills, on the Fleurieu, at Mirramu and beyond - have given audiences the opportunity to experience nature and dance in unique and personal ways.
Elizabeth has generously shared her methods with other dancers and choreographers, marking a new phase of her contribution to Australian dance practice.
I encourage everyone, whether they consider themselves an artist or not, to read Elizabeth’s book and to draw inspiration from her methods of sparking creativity through interaction with the natural world.
Her methodologies do more than inspire great art, as significant as that is.
They invite the individual – each one of us - into a deep relationship with nature, one that surpasses the limitations of the thinking mind and emerges from within the deep wisdom of the body.
They produce a sense of wellbeing and connection to life of benefit to us all.
In a world where rates of mental ill health are rising, and environmental destruction continue apace, Elizabeth offers us a different approach to these challenges - one which shares many similarities with the practices of First Nations people.
Given Elizabeth’s vitality in her tenth decade of life, these approaches may also contribute to our health and longevity!
Elizabeth, congratulations on the completion of ‘Nature Moves’.
It is my great pleasure to officially launch the book and to wish you continued success in achieving the objectives you hold most dear.